Vince McMahon Wanted Roman Reigns To Remain ‘The Big Dog’ After WWE Heel Turn Says Paul Heyman: ‘Really? You Want To Call Him The Tribal Chief?’

WWE

Paul Heyman has revealed Vince McMahon’s original plans for Roman Reigns’ 2020 WWE heel turn, which included “The OTC’ retaining his past moniker of “The Big Dog.”

Formed in 2020, The Bloodline was intially a product of the pandemic era for WWE, and saw Roman Reigns return at SummerSlam the year prior as a heel.

Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Paul Heyman revealed that Vince McMahon wanted Reigns to be “The Big Dog” after his heel turn, and wasn’t particularly impressed with the couch Reigns and Heyman used during their first segment together on the August 28, 2020 episode of SmackDown, saying:

“Vince thought the couch was not opulent enough for a character that was then going to end up being called The Tribal Chief. I can’t disagree with him, but we were in a rush to get that done.

“Well, the original idea was for us both to return at SummerSlam, and then be on TV that Friday and lead into Payback that weekend that we built to in the rematch where the title went to the Tribal Chief Roman Reigns. I thought let Roman return, give that moment to The Big Dog, and then that Friday on television, he’s not cooperative in the triple threat, he’s not cooperative with Adam Pearce, you know something’s up, but you can’t put your finger on it.

“Go to him sitting on the couch, and Pearce is looking over going, what the f**k is Heyman doing there?! But you don’t know that Heyman is sitting there, and at the last second pull out because Roman says, ‘That’s not a prediction, that’s a spoiler.’ And you see Brock Lesnar’s advocate sitting with Roman Reigns after all these years, and I just hit Roman’s tagline of ‘Believe that,’ and off the air.

“So for five seconds you see us together. Did I just see that? You’re rubbing your eyes, and you can’t believe what you saw. And then that weekend get the title on Roman, and then the next Friday is our first appearance, truly together in front of the cameras as a unit, presenting our case as to why this act is a game-changing act, and will create history in WWE.”

Turning his attention to the transition from “The Big Dog” to the “Tribal Chief”, Heyman would lay out the rationale behind that and McMahon’s reaction, explaining:

“The first time I came up with Tribal Chief, (Vince said) ‘Really? You want to call him the Tribal Chief?’”

“(On what Vince wanted to call him) ‘Oh, The Big Dog, Roman Reigns, with his advocate, Paul Heyman’.

“I said, ‘Well, I can’t be his advocate as Brock Lesnar’s advocate. We have to have something different to Roman Reigns, and Roman Reigns has to be different. You got to pull the trigger on this. This has to be as much of a seismic shift as The Deadman becoming The American Badass. This is a whole new character. This is a whole new persona, and he could not have played this persona earlier, because he was too young to do it.

“He needed to weather the storms to become the Tribal Chief. We grew up with him, almost like he was a child star, in that we saw him from his young days, fresh out of college, and he grew into this Tribal Chief.”

Heyman would also reveal that a heated WWE Raw segment with Jey Uso from May of last year saw him perform while suffering a ‘serious infection‘.

The Legacy Of The Tribal Chief

A ceremonial title it may be, but The Tribal Chief has carved a level of authority in WWE like no other, such is the value of the term.

Tribal Combat matches have been fought over the past few years, with the most recent taking place at WWE Clash in Italy between Roman Reigns and Jacob Fatu. The outcome of that match saw Reigns not only retain the World Heavyweight Championship, but also the title of Tribal Chief.

Jacob Fatu may have acknowledged Reigns as the Tribal Chief and aligned with The Bloodline, but his allegiance doesn’t stretch to The Usos. Indeed, Jey Uso previously engaged in Tribal Combat at SummerSlam in 2023, but was unable to leave as the victor in that encounter.

Unlike any particular WWE Championship, the term Tribal Chief is very much locked to the Bloodline dynasty, represented by members of the Anoa’i, Maivia and Fatu family tree.

The legacy has history, as one would expect, but also many more generations to come, with Zilla Fatu among those to garner interest from WWE. While Roman Reigns may very much be the Head of the Table, there’ll come a day when he is replaced, and there’s plenty of Bloodline family members who will be there to take that top spot.

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

• Bloodline
• wwe
• Roman Reigns
• Vince McMahon
• paul heyman

Share this article with friends