Corey Graves Reveals He Helped Name Roman Reigns (Exclusive)

WWE

Current Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns is one of the biggest stars in the company, and has recently made news about a potential jump to Hollywood.

Reigns (real name Joe Anoa’i) competed under the name Leakee in FCW, before he was renamed Roman Reigns for his debut on NXT in 2012, and later the main roster.

TalkSPORT’s Alex McCarthy caught up with Corey recently for WrestleTalk, where he revealed that he helped come up with Roman’s ring name.

He said:

“I won’t say I named Roman Reigns, but I did suggest that he spells his last name the way he does. He’s actually acknowledged it a few times, which I thought was really cool. That’s my little contribution to ‘The Head Of The Table’.

“It’s sort of strange when I see Roman or Seth in particular. Seth’s the one where he’s been one of my closest friends since those days. I’m such a huge fan of Seth Rollins, and when he’s out there doing what he does, those are the times when the itch gets a little more present, because I think man, we had some pretty good matches against each other, then The Shield, The Wyatt Family, all these great memories from NXT.

“I just look at it as if I’m taking a different role in their journey. I’m going to live on vocally through so many of these moments and video packages, and when it comes down to JR and Stone Cold being synonymous, there will hopefully be a time where it’s me and Rollins, me and Reigns, and can kind of be the voice of that generation, which is satisfying in a very different way to competing in the ring, but it’s still satisfying nonetheless.”

If you use these exclusive quotes, or any portion of them, please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

Reigns recently signed a new WWE contract, which will see him working less dates going forward.

You can also find more stories from the interview with Graves on our Exclusives page.

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• ring name
• corey graves
• Roman Reigns
• wwe

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