Roman Reigns on Being a Face/Heel, Jericho Says Roman “Best” in WWE

Roman Reigns was recently interviewed by ESPN and talked about whether he’s a heel or face:

“To me, I’m neither. If I’m totally off here, then I’m totally off, but I’m the first of my type. I’m the first true gray area guy … just being what he was born to be.

“I don’t go out there and act crazy and flail around and be a heel. I don’t come out there smiling and kissing babies, telling each town it’s my favorite town at the end of the night. I keep it real. Sometimes I’m in a good mood. Sometimes I’m in a bad one. I want my character to be as human as possible, but not just a regular human that you see every single day.”

Triple H was also asked about Reigns in the same ESPN story and said that he doesn’t think that Roman should be turned heel:

“Fans will say that all the time — ‘I hate Roman Reigns.’ They did it with [John] Cena, too. I remember telling Cena years ago, when it started happening to him, ‘Dude, what do you care? You’re the Yankees and the Red Sox at the same time.’ The place is sold out.

“When people say, ‘They should just turn Roman,’ why? For the people that hate him, he’s already turned, and for the people that love him, they don’t want him to turn. And if we turned him, the people who hate him would switch to loving him, and the people who love him would switch to hating him.

“Roman Reigns sells tickets. Roman Reigns sells merchandise. Roman Reigns is one of the most looked-up guys on the internet. He’s all of these things. It doesn’t matter. We’re in a world now where there’s so much access to everything that you can’t dictate to somebody anymore.

“That’s what the internet does — it allows you to have your own opinion, and you can find somebody that backs your opinion up so you’re not all alone. You can hate who you want to hate, love who you want to love, and no matter what we [the WWE] do, no matter what it seems like we’re promotionally getting behind, it really sort of doesn’t matter. We can’t control that.”

Chris Jericho

Chris Jericho was interviewed by Sports Illustrated and said that he feels that Roman Reigns “might be the best wrestler in the company.”

“For whatever reason it’s the cool thing to boo Roman Reigns, just as it was the cool thing to boo John Cena, just as it was the cool thing to boo The Rock. But guess what? Those guys are so good that if you really are a wrestling fan – and Roman Reigns might be the best wrestler in the company. And I’m telling you that because if people are interested in what you’re doing whether they’re booing or whether they’re cheering, they’re still going to pay money to see you.”

He was also asked if he thought Roman Reigns should turn heel:

“It’s always good to change up your character, but I wouldn’t change it right now. Obviously, the boss has decided that Roman is going to be a tweener. It’s like football or baseball or hockey. Not everybody’s going to cheer for the same team. They’re still making noise and Roman’s not getting stale. Jericho, at many times in my career, has been stale. And then it’s like, what do I do next? I star wearing scarves and suddenly scarves become a big thing.”