Roman Reigns Teases Leaving WWE During Live Show Before WrestleMania Backlash

AMER HILABI/AFP via Getty Images

Roman Reigns hinted his time in WWE may
be heading toward its conclusion after his match at Saturday’s live
event in Trenton, New Jersey.

Reigns defeated Drew McIntyre in the
main event and then grabbed the microphone to address the fans, per
Subhojeet Mukherjee of Ringside News.

“I’ve been here many times, you know
what I’m saying? I’ve been here a couple of times in the past 10
years. And I’m starting to work into a new phase in my career, and I
honestly don’t know if I’ll be back here again,” Reigns said. “If
that’s the case, I just wanna say thank you for all these years of
support.”

Reigns (real name Joe Anoa’i) is a
former college football player at Georgia Tech who had short stints
on the NFL rosters of the Minnesota Vikings and Jacksonville Jaguars.

The 36-year-old Florida native signed
with WWE in 2010 and worked his way through the company’s
developmental system before arriving to the main roster in 2012 as
part of The Shield alongside Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose (Jon
Moxley).

After a successful run with The Shield,
which became one of the best factions in wrestling history, Reigns
has embarked on a successful singles career that’s taken off over the
past few years with a dominant Universal Championship run.

He’s held the belt since August 2020, a
span of more than 600 days, and he unified WWE’s top titles with a
victory over WWE champion Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 38 last month.

Now the question is whether Reigns may
follow in the footsteps of his cousin, Dwayne “The Rock”
Johnson, by using the popularity gained from WWE to head for
Hollywood.

Of course, it’s always possible Reigns’
comments are part of a storyline where he’ll continue to tease a WWE
exit only for The Rock to return from the acting world for a feud,
possibly at SummerSlam in July or a more extended arc that concludes
at next year’s WrestleMania.

He could also be testing the waters to
see whether a Hollywood exit angle could generate some extra heat for
a potential feud with the recently returned Cody Rhodes, who WWE would
want to operate as a major babyface within that scenario.

So, while it’s possible Reigns’ remarks
in Trenton are a shoot and he’s truly unsure whether he’ll make
another wrestling stop in the city, there are a lot of variables in
play. WWE also knows those type of comments would generate major headlines
leading into Sunday’s WrestleMania Backlash event.

Reigns will team with the other members
of The Bloodline, The Usos, to take on McIntyre and RK-Bro (Randy
Orton and Riddle) in a six-man tag team match at the first pay-per-view
show since Mania.

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