ESPN decided to mix college football and pro wrestling over the weekend, but one massive WWE name was nowhere to be found — Roman Reigns.
During its college football coverage, ESPN aired a graphic spotlighting notable professional wrestlers who also played college football. The list included Ron Simmons, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Bill Goldberg and Bron Breakker. Reigns, who played defensive tackle at Georgia Tech before becoming one of WWE’s biggest stars, somehow didn’t make the cut.
That omission didn’t exactly go unnoticed. Wrestling fans quickly started questioning how ESPN could put together a list like that and leave out the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion, especially considering Reigns had a much more accomplished college football career than some of the names who actually appeared on the graphic. One fan summed up the reaction pretty clearly.
“I am not even going to ask why ESPN could not make room for WWE’s current World Champion Roman Reigns (Georgia Tech) on the list.”
The reaction makes sense when you look at Reigns’ history. Before WWE ever called him The Tribal Chief, Leati Joseph Anoa’i was a three-year starter at Georgia Tech and earned First Team All-ACC honors during his senior season. His football career eventually took him through brief stops with the Minnesota Vikings and Jacksonville Jaguars before he played in the Canadian Football League and ultimately moved on from the sport.
Reigns has never treated that chapter of his life like some throwaway footnote either. He previously admitted that he probably would have chosen football over professional wrestling if his career on the field had gone differently. While discussing what he originally wanted out of his athletic career, Reigns explained just how seriously he viewed football at the time.
“I wanted to have an impact on young men. I wanted to be the way Emmitt Smith and Michael Jordan and Joe Montana and the stars of when I was a child, the way they made me feel. I wanted to make other young athletes feel that way. But no matter what, it was either you’re going to be a wrestler, or you’re going to be a football player. A superstar of some sort.”
WWE has also leaned directly into Reigns’ Georgia Tech history before. In 2024, the company filmed Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes at Georgia Tech ahead of WWE Bad Blood, turning Reigns’ old football stomping grounds into part of one of WWE’s biggest storylines at the time.
That makes ESPN’s omission even stranger considering the network’s growing WWE connection. ESPN is now part of WWE’s Premium Live Event ecosystem, and Reigns was just featured prominently at Money in the Bank, where he defeated LA Knight to retain the World Heavyweight Championship.
To be fair, ESPN wasn’t going to fit every wrestler with a football background onto one graphic. Names such as Big E, Vader, JBL and plenty of others could easily have been included as well. But leaving Roman Reigns out stands apart when he’s not only one of WWE’s biggest active stars, but also someone with a legitimate Georgia Tech résumé to back up his place on the list.
Reigns probably isn’t losing any sleep over an ESPN graphic after walking out of Money in the Bank with his championship still around his waist, but fans certainly noticed. When you’re talking about wrestlers who played college football, leaving The Tribal Chief off the board was always going to get people asking questions.
Do you think ESPN should have included Roman Reigns on its college football-wrestling graphic, and if so, who should have been removed to make room for him? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
