Roman Reigns and The Rock defeated Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins in the main event of WWE WrestleMania 40 Night One. During the post-show press conference, Reigns talked about setting the WrestleMania main event record tomorrow, his current leukemia status, attracting The Rock back to WWE, what it was like to share a ring with him, and using silence to tell deeper stories. Highlights are below.
On how it feels to become the superstar with the most WrestleMania main events in WWE history: “I’m already thinking about 10. Thinking about the next night. We’re going to smash tomorrow and then we’re going to move on, that’s how it is, that’s what greatness is, we don’t sit in it or worry about the next goal, write that down.”
On Pat McAfee saying during the WrestleMania 40 broadcast that Roman Reigns is currently suffering from leukemia: “I’m still on oral chemotherapy, it’s a medication that I’m going to have to remain on for my entire life, most likely, so that’s just part of my personal battle. It doesn’t effect, thank God, I’m still able to perform. I think anybody in my position would say that health is wealth and as long as I can continue to perform and then you already know that that’s at bay, so we’re good, it’s in remission, but it’s something that is still a part of my life.”
On what it means to attract The Rock back to WWE: “I feel like what we did tonight started in August of 2020. In order to attract a global superstar like my cousin, you gotta have your shit together, you gotta be on the up and up, you gotta have something special going on because he always has something special being offered, so this had to be something even greater than even Hollywood could offer, and he does all kinds of stuff now, he’s that successful, so for him to pay attention to us and want to be involved with what we’re doing, it just speaks to how special the Bloodline is and how we primed this place and made this place a destination for everybody. There is no question now, this is the place to be and it’s because of us, through the most turbulent times, COVID, no fans, everything that has gone on, Tribal Chief and the Wise Man keep it steady around here.”
On what it meant to be in the ring with The Rock: “This is what I’ve been dreaming my whole life. When I got in the business, I didn’t even think, it wasn’t even a thought it would be possible, because either he has moved on, or it was going to be more of an appearance based situation, but I’ve used the same mindset the whole time, in the high tide I lift up everybody, and the first thing I wanted to do was lift my family, the Usos, Solo, and Dwayne is no different. We primed this thing perfectly, we set the launchpad, and we placed The Rock in it and now we took off. Everything we do doesn’t happen if we don’t get to this point and if I don’t make the choice to, because I could have easily been like, man, we got it, we don’t need anybody, but we chose to put the Usos in a spotlight, we chose to put Solo in the spotlight, we chose to lift everybody up, that’s my M-O man, I’m not messing around with this Bloodline thing, it’s for real to me.”
On learning to use silence and tell deeper stories: “When we were in the middle of the pandemic, we hadn’t even gone into the Thunderdome, and I’m watching these guys in an empty warehouse, and I’m like, they’re wrestling the same, they’re trying to do the same thing. I had the advantage of being on the sideline at the time, but I knew exactly what I needed to do, it was time to change the game, to use this silence, and allow your voice to be boosted, allow yourself to take it into different dialogue, you don’t just have to be sitting in the middle of the ring shouting above people chanting. Now we can tell stories, now we can get into deeper dialogue, Game of Thrones style, you better pay attention, you better listen up, because next week more info is coming, and we said it from the very beginning, we didn’t stumble upon this, we knew exactly what we were doing, pay attention because layers are coming, information is coming.”
If using any of the above quotes, please credit 411mania.com for the transcription.
