Here’s When WWE Decided Roman Reigns Would Be Their Next Top Star

WWE

Paul Heyman has revealed that WWE had discussed plans for Brock Lesnar’s successor even before The Beast conquered The Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak.

Despite being presented as a dominant star throughout most of his wrestling career, Lesnar was the most dominant around 2014.

In one of the most iconic WWE Championship matches in history, Lesnar destroyed Cena in a one-sided 16 minute beatdown in the main event of SummerSlam 2014.

Prior to this, Lesnar had pinned the Undertaker at WrestleMania 30, serving the Deadman his first loss on the Grandest Stage of Them All, after 21 straight WrestleMania victories.

Speaking on Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton podcast, Paul Heyman noted that even in April 2014, WWE had plans for Roman Reigns to defeat Lesnar.

When asked if he thought Vince McMahon would’ve let Undertaker retire with his WrestleMania streak, Heyman said:

“No. It’s not in Vince’s nature. It’s just not. I’m gonna get something out of this. I invested this much into it, and I want something out of it.

“He just never saw the time yet where he needed it and that was something that was going to be pulled when he needed it.

“Would he have let The Undertaker retire at a SummerSlam or Survivor Series, mid year, and retire off into the sunset? Yea, we will keep you on retainer. We’ll cut a merchandising deal with you. We’ll keep you active in some way so that you can make a living and a handsome one at that and still have the benefit of the intellectual property and everything.

“But one of the reasons why Vince would do that is, oh, this is a great WrestleMania for you to come out of retirement and defend the streak, and by the way, I found the person to beat you.

“I don’t care if Undertaker was 85 years old at the time. If he’s alive, if the Dead Man is alive, so to speak, then the streak is exploitable and if it’s exploitable, the promoter in Vince McMahon wants to exploit it.

“Brock becomes the successor to the streak, becomes the holy grail, becomes the victory no man can attain and becomes the embodiment of the impossible mountain to climb so that when someone climbs that mountain, when someone beats Brock Lesnar, they are instantly made in the same way that Brock Lesnar is instantly made, the moment the referee’s hand hits three at WrestleMania 30, signifying Brock had conquered the streak, and we had someone in mind to be the next big thing, the company’s next big star, the guy that would pull the wagon, the successor to John Cena, the person to become the one who beat the one in 21-1.

“We had someone in mind, even at that time. Do you know who that person was? Roman Reigns.”

While Reigns faced Lesnar at WrestleMania 31 and 34, he finally scored a victory over the Beast at SummerSlam 2018 to win the Universal Title.

The duo had several matches in 2021 and 2022, with Reigns notably winning a match to unify the WWE and Universal championships at WrestleMania 38.

Paul Heyman also recalled a creative decision that made Reigns say he had enough, which you can read more about right here.

Transcription via WrestlingNews.co. 

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• Brock Lesnar
• paul heyman
• Roman Reigns
• wwe

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