During a recent appearance on The LAW: Live Audio Wrestling podcast, WWE Superstar Roman Reigns talked the negative reaction he got from the fans at Royal Rumble earlier this year, headlining WrestleMania, SummerSlam and more.
Below is what he had to say about fans rejecting him as the Royal Rumble winner and what motivated him to be better:
“It all happened for a reason. In sports entertainment, professional wrestling, entertainment, storytelling, you can do anything, you can tell any story you want to. It’s difficult to say, especially within what we do, with hindsight. I think there is a lot of things we could have done or maybe thought about, but it is what it is, it really is. It all happened for a reason. Bryan and myself were both hurt we were both coming back around similar times. 100% it didn’t help me coming back around the same time as Bryan, especially with everything he has gone though over the past year, year-and-a-half.
People talk about getting through adversity and going through some tough stuff, the stuff that happened to Bryan, the ups and downs, I think everyone was rooting for him (Bryan), I was rooting for him. I still to this day root for him. I want to see Bryan back in a wrestling ring, tearing the house down with myself and all the rest of the boys. It was just a tough situation, regardless of what happened or how we could have changed that night as far as responses, as far as having the crowd react properly to me, or how we wanted them to, it didn’t.
But it helped me, it helped me grow, it left a huge impression on me, you know I thank Philly every day for that. You have to learn fast in this business and I’d like to think I’m doing that, but without that night, that was a huge kick in the a$$, that lit a fire under me. If you’ve seen what I’ve done in the past six-months, I think you can tell Royal Rumble definitely helped me.”
