Who Pushed For Roman Reigns WWE Character Change In 2020 Revealed

WWE

A WWE name has confirmed that it was him who pitched to Vince McMahon for Roman Reigns to undergo a character change in 2020.

After months away from WWE TV during the pandemic era, Roman Reigns returned at SummerSlam 2020, attacking “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman.

This is considered the birth of Roman Reigns’ Tribal Chief character, which went on to hold the Universal Championship for 1316 days, with Paul Heyman in his corner as his Special Counsel and Wiseman.

Speaking on Six Feet Under with The Undertaker, Paul Heyman noted that the original plan was for him to be the advocate of “The Big Dog” Roman Reigns, before he pushed for Reigns to have a character change.

Explaining how the Tribal Chief came to be, Heyman said:

“In 2020 when COVID hit and the decision was made corporately, ‘We’re going to produce live to taped television twice a week, Raw and SmackDown, here we go, and we’re still going to do premium live events…’

“Brock’s contract wrapped up just as the whole world shut down, and Vince made the business decision, ‘We’ve got to take a break for a while. I’m not just going to have Brock Lesnar wrestle in this cavernous atmosphere…’ We knew we were down for at least a year, and then who knows? We didn’t know when the world was going to come out of this.

“The opportunity arose at that time, Roman had taken so much time off, and the decision was made for us to finally work together. When I asked Vince his vision for it, he just said, ‘The Big Dog, and you’re his advocate.’

“The first thing I said was ‘He can’t be the Big Dog anymore. We’ve run with the Big Dog since 2012. He needs to evolve into something completely different, and I can’t be his advocate. I was Brock Lesnar’s advocate, I must be something different to this character.’

“The examples I continuously gave, and this is what sold Vince on it, The Deadman, and the American Badass. It had to be that shocking of a metamorphosis.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it, please credit WrestleTalk.com and link back to this page. 

Roman Reigns becoming the Tribal Chief resulted in the beginning of the Bloodline saga, which is still going to this day.

With Solo Sikoa attacking Reigns on Raw, Bully Ray has said that he “wouldn’t be shocked” if WWE brought up a new signing to join this storyline, click here to read more.

If you use this transcription or any portion of it, please credit WrestleTalk.com and link back to this page. 

To make sure you stay up to date with all the biggest wrestling and WrestleTalk news, follow us on Threads by clicking this link!

• wwe
• Roman Reigns
• paul heyman
• Character Change

Share this article with friends