Roman Reigns is fresh off his third straight WrestleMania main event, which is pretty good, in my opinion. He won the WWE Championship last year, and this year he retired the god danged Undertaker, so he’s a pretty big deal. And as he let us all know last Monday, this is his yard now.
But that first WrestleMania main event — while being the best match of the three — didn’t end Reigns’ way. He ended up losing that match to a guy who wasn’t even in it, as Seth Rollins cashed in the Money in the Bank briefcase to take the title from Lesnar by pinning Reigns. The match was phenomenal even before Rollins got involved, as Reigns appeared to be on the verge of taking the then-unbeatable Lesnar to his limit.
But according to The Guy himself, things almost didn’t go down that way. During an appearance on the Talk Is Jericho podcast, Reigns told Chris Jericho that both Lesnar and Paul Heyman wanted the bout to be a real one-sided affair. He said it wasn’t easy convincing them to be a real contest, but he persevered and made it happen. (Transcript via Wrestling Inc.)
“No, it wasn’t easy, by any means. But the thing I had a lot of confidence in is I knew it was just going to be a fight. I knew it was going to be brutal and I like that s–t. Like, hey, if you want to bang, I’m all for it. I’m never scared. But it was just weird. It really was. It was last minute. It was one of those deals where it wasn’t a lot of talking, didn’t seem open to ideas because, essentially, in their minds, and when I say ‘their minds’ I say Brock and Paul, which, that is a powerful pairing right there.
“But those two, they’re something else. They wanted to kill me. They were convinced however many people were there, eighty [thousand], whatever, they wanted to see me get crushed. They were there and they just want to see Roman get his ass beat. And I can’t disagree with them, but brother [has] got to fight. Hey, you can kick my ass all you want, but I’m going to fight.
“I knew he wanted to get straight to the [Suplex] City, and I was like, ‘f–k it. Here we go!’ And nobody does this, like, it was ‘ding, ding, ding’ and I went right into him.” Reigns said, “for me, it was just about taking that ass-whooping and I’m thankful to Brock because he [has] got a name. Brock is legit, ‘I’ll break your face and I’m not scared to go in there and have someone break mine’. I’ve seen him crush people. I’ve seen him get his ass whooped too, by who was it? [Cain] Velasquez or whatever. But just to have the balls to go out there and like do that, you’ve got to be a man and I respect him, I respect his name, and the fact that he went out there and he built it.
“I’m proud of that match. I don’t know if it was like… I don’t know if it’s my favorite of all of them, but, like, I think it might be my best one. Like, story-wise and just the moment, and the crowd switched and with Seth [Rollins] coming, it had a little bit of everything. It was just really good. It was really good business.”
This definitely isn’t the first time we’ve heard about Lesnar not being receptive to input from a challenger, and hey, maybe it won’t be the last. But if what Reigns says is accurate, kudos to him for sticking to his guns. He may not have earned the respect of the fans yet, but by all accounts he carries himself like a true top guy behind the scenes.
