Roman Reigns says there are scenarios he would go back and change from his early days in WWE.
Over the past six years, Roman Reigns has firmly established himself at the top of WWE as the Tribal Chief and helped usher in one of the most successful periods in the history of the company.
However, the star faced a long struggle to get to that point, with fans having rejected WWE’s decision to push him into the main event scene and try to make him the face of the company over a decade ago.
During an appearance on Club Shay Shay, Reigns discussed how he would have changed his early days in the WWE. The current World Heavyweight Champion admitted one of the biggest things would be to become more willing to say “no” when he disagreed with something. As an example, he brought up his promo with Seth Rollins when he used the phrase “suffering succotash”, something people bring up to this day.
“I probably would’ve said no a few more times early on. But I just didn’t have the equity within the company. I wasn’t rooted well enough in the main event scene. I was still auditioning, I was still proving myself, I was still earning that equity.
“This was like 14 years ago, and they’ll still quote me for saying ‘suffering succotash.’ This was so long ago, it was 12 years ago. I’ve delivered unbelievable work since then, but still, I’ll be tied to that.
“There’s probably, not many, there wasn’t that many, but there’s probably two or three promos or scenarios, segments, or finishes of a match or something like that, that I would probably go back and develop the balls to be like, ‘Nah, not today, brother.’”
Roman Reigns Defends Lighter Schedule In WWE
Over the past few years, fans have been critical of Roman Reigns for having a lighter schedule despite being a World Champion for much of the time. During the same interview, the OTC defended not working live events, pointing to the fact that there was a long period of time when he was wrestling on 150-200 shows every year.
Reigns also noted that it makes sense from a business standpoint to keep him off live events to make sure he doesn’t get injured and risk his TV and PLE appearances.
