Below are some top WWE news stories of the day, involving Roman Reigns and Hulk Hogan.
• During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Paul Heyman revealed that Roman Reigns studied 1979 movie “Apocalypse Now” to become The Tribal Chief:
“When Roman Reigns and I came up with the character, I had Roman study Apocalypse Now, because the initial launch of The Tribal Chief to me was Colonel Kurtz. (Marlon) Brando.
All things on the Island of Relevancy flow through ‘The Tribal Chief’ Roman Reigns, we all rely on him. We all look to him for the answer, and at the end of the movie, when Martin Sheen has fulfilled the directive of the United States military’s covert operation, to terminate Kurtz’s command with extreme prejudice, he opens up the book written by Kurtz. He sees what Kurtz has written, ‘drop the bomb.’
The burden of leadership, the burden of the worship, the burden of the expectations, the burden of, let’s call it the acknowledgement, is so heavy on Kurtz that he resents everyone around him for relying on him to this extent, though his power and his entire character is designed for that very purpose.
We walked into WrestleMania (40) weekend with the knowledge that this was the time for the chapter of Roman Reigns as champion to end, we had taken it as far as we possibly could, we needed new things to sink our teeth into.
It was the longest heavyweight title reign in WWE in 40 years, and with good reason, it’s very difficult to keep the champion’s run that interesting for that long. It’s just a different era. But we managed to do it, and we knew, ‘Let’s get out while the get was good,’ and it was time to anoint Cody. We had a two year storyline with Cody Rhodes, and this is where the payoff had to happen.”
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• During an interview with WFAN, Seth Rollins once again talked about his dislike for Hulk Hogan, despite growing up as a huge fan of the Hulkster:
“I was a Hogan fan growing up, yes. I grew up a Hulk Hogan fan. I’ve said it a million times, the dude has been nothing but kind to me in my life and our interactions. Doesn’t make him a good person. Obviously, he’s run into some issues as of late. We’ll see if he clears those up. That’s his business, though.”
When asked if he was surprised to see Hogan get booed on the RAW Netflix premiere in Los Angeles, Rollins said:
“No, I was not surprised. I mean, look, he hasn’t done a lot to harbor goodwill in his name over the past few years. So I just think with everything that’s going on with him, he came out, I saw it coming. I don’t know if anybody else did, but I did, yes.”
