Roman Reigns said that John Cena is ‘no longer here’ in regards to WWE in a new interview with Ryan Satin. Cena reportedly refused to wrestle a WWE Hall of Famer, according to a new claim.
When asked about performing without crowds, the Universal Champion told Satin on Fox Sports, “It’s been tough. My whole career has been based off of reactions. Everything is due to interactions. That’s kinda always been my measuring stick.
Even when the fans hated me, it was still louder than everybody else. Everybody else can complain. They can bitch and complain about, ‘Oh, I don’t get this opportunity,’ or ‘I should be like this,’ or ‘I should be here,’ ‘I should be the main event.’ But, when it came down to it, my reaction was always way louder than everybody else’s.
There’s only one guy. Cena. That’s it, for obvious reasons … and he’s no longer here any more. That’s the difference is we don’t have that. So, you have to be able to pull out different tools. You can’t be a one trick pony, and I feel like people called me that quite a bit during the first part of my career. Limited move set, what have you.
Being in this time, in these pandemic times, you gotta be able to pull out different layers to your performance, different attributes and show different tools. And that’s what I’ve done over the past six months is show a different side of me as a performer. Completely change the dynamics to my matches and the way people perceive my storytelling in-ring.
I added so much more dialogue; to now everybody cuts a promo while they’re wrestling … and they can’t! Because I’m the one that’s doing it at the top level.
So, when it gets compared to what I’m doing … I cried in the ring, for Christ’s sake! To be able to tap into these emotions and to be able to put on these type of performances, I just feel like I’m doing it at a different level and I’ve had to do that because I don’t have that security blanket of the reactions being really loud.
Hell, if I ever got to a point where it’s like, ‘Man, I don’t know what I want to do,’ all I gotta do is sit still and look at the crowd and they’ll make some kind of noise, you know what I mean? But, I don’t have that vehicle there any more. So, you have to really be smart about how you put on your performance nowadays.”
Reigns is set to defend his Universal Championship against Kevin Owens in a Las Man Standing match at the Royal Rumble. Reigns’ Special Counsel Paul Heyman had an intense back and forth with Owens on Talking Smack last week, tweeting tonight, “For the record:
1 – I like @FightOwensFight. He adds a lot to @WWE. 2 – I heard everything #KO had to say on last week’s ground-breaking #TalkingSmack. 3 – It’s out of my hands @WWERomanReigns calls the shots. 4- It’s for #KO to deal with tomorrow LIVE.”
