Roman Reigns knows WWE can’t lean on him and Cody Rhodes forever, and the Tribal Chief says the company eventually needs a younger star ready to grab the ball.
During his appearance on Club Shay Shay, Reigns was asked who he sees positioning themselves to become the face of WWE after his time in that role comes to an end. Instead of naming one specific wrestler, Roman pointed out that WWE has already gone through a version of that transition with Cody Rhodes.
Reigns explained that having one face of the company isn’t enough anyway, because WWE needs several major stars capable of carrying different parts of the business.
“Yeah, there has to be. I mean, you know, even within, you know, my career, we transitioned out of me briefly with Cody. Um, because it, you need as much talent as possible. You want to lift up as many as, you know, I mean, we want to have many tent poles holding this to scale it out, to make it as big as possible.”
That’s when Reigns got to the bigger issue. He and Rhodes are essentially from the same generation, meaning WWE will eventually need somebody younger to emerge behind both of them.
“Um, so a lot of people could be asked to take on that responsibility or help out, but yeah, I mean me and Cody are a similar age. I mean, I think I’m just barely older than him. Um, so yeah, we definitely need a younger guy to step into that role.”
Roman believes WWE already has plenty of young wrestlers with the potential to get there, but he stressed that becoming a legitimate top-level star takes time, repetition and surviving the physical grind that comes with the business.
“So I think we have a lot of young talent, a lot of fresh faces. Uh, and at the end of the day, they just got to go through their 10,000 hours. They got to put that time in. Injuries are a part of it. And people don’t realize how taxing it is on your body because you’re doing this like you said.”
Reigns then pointed back to the schedule wrestlers have traditionally worked, explaining that the repetition is part of what turns promising talent into somebody capable of carrying WWE.
“You do it and guess what? You go to bed and you do it again the next day and you do it again the next day and you do it again the next day and you’re doing that 150, as you said, 150, 200 times. I think Ric said he was doing it, he did it like 300 times. I mean growing, he was doing it 300 times. He probably did it 400 a couple years where you do doubles.”
Roman’s comments carry extra weight considering Cody was the man who finally ended his historic 1,316-day championship reign at WrestleMania 40. Reigns recently admitted that he had trouble processing the end of that run after being on top for so long.
The relationship between Reigns and Rhodes has continued evolving since then. Their rivalry became such a major piece of WWE’s modern era that WWE even considered going back to Reigns vs. Rhodes for WrestleMania 42 before creative plans moved in another direction.
Roman isn’t saying WWE is about to push him or Cody out the door. He’s saying the clock never stops in WWE. Reigns and Rhodes can still sit at the top of the mountain, but somebody younger eventually has to start climbing toward them, and Roman knows there’s no shortcut to earning that spot.
Who do you think should become WWE’s next major face after Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes? Drop your pick and leave your feedback in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
