Paul Heyman says Roman Reigns always had a vision of a character past The Big Dog.
During Roman Reigns’ initial singles run in WWE, he was known as “The Big Dog.” As this character, he was a superhero style babyface that was successful, but did not capture the imagination of fans with boos following Reigns for most of this run. Now, he is the Tribal Chief and has been champion for over 1000 days as a heel that has reached new heights as the face of WWE.
Appearing on Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin, Paul Heyman spoke about Roman’s rivalry with Brock Lesnar and noted that Roman had always had a vision of something past “The Big Dog.”
“So I had known Roman’s family for so many years, and I could tell that this was a natural matchup for Brock Lesnar. This was Macho Man to Hogan. This was Rock to Austin. This was just the rivalry, the two that would go down in history intertwined together. They just matched up so well. So Roman and I had talked about it because Roman always, much like Brock understanding the cap of his money in 2004, Roman understood the cap of The Big Dog as a personality. Roman understood that the presentation of The Big Dog Roman Reigns, as much as he could make it his own, was always going to be the corporate structure produced talent.,”
“I’ll even reference a piece of music that Rick Rubin didn’t produce. George Michael, Freedom 90. That’s Roman Reigns. The whole thing about George Michael singing, they wanted my eyes this color, they wanted me to sing this way. This is how the labels wanted to present me because that was the marketing, that was the exploitation of my intellectual property. But as an artist, I want the freedom to soar or sink on my own and with my own merits. With my real colored eyes, with the way that I really look and dress and present myself and approach my art and music. Roman Reigns always had a vision of something past The Big Dog, but he was still too young,”
Paul Heyman
Roman Reigns is set to return to SmackDown on next week’s show where Jey Uso will finally make his decision of who he stands with.
H/T to Fightful
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