Though he has only been away from WWE for two months since losing his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, fans have already begun to really miss Roman Reigns, so much so that whenever Solo Sikoa and the “new” Bloodline appear on SmackDown, fans chant that they want their “Tribal Chief” instead.
Discussing Roman’s reign in full now that his historic run with the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship has come to an end in an interview with Screen Rant, WWE Hall of Fame D-Von Dudley celebrated the “Head of the Table” for being an incredible WWE Champion, putting him in an elite company with only the best of the best like Hulk Hogan.
“I rank him in the same rank as ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, as The Rock, as Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Bruno Sammartino. He carried the company when others couldn’t, and he did it for a long period of time. Listen, at one point in time, back in the 80s, you had people like Hogan, Bruno, Flair — they would have the tiles for almost three, four, or five years. Then, that type of thing went away, you wouldn’t have that, you were a champion for maybe six months and that was it. But Roman was able to captivate that and make it just like we did back in the day where we were counting how many days would Roman still be champion, who would be tough enough to knock off him off that pedestal,” D-Von Dudley told Screen Rant via Fightful.
“We had to make sure that the right person came along and was able to do that. We saw matches with him and other WWE stars that were legendary, yet we needed that one guy and that one guy was Cody Rhodes. I was very happy to see that. Again, I think Roman carrying the company, especially what he did during the roughest times, during the pandemic and leading up to WrestleMania 40, I think it’s great. Storyline-wise, the things that he did with The Bloodline are tremendous. I can’t put over enough how proud I am of The Usos and him and Sikoa. It was a great ride. Even Sami Zayn when he was part of that. It was a great ride, it was a great watch to see those guys do their magic and I’m very proud of every one of those participants that participated in that.”
Could other members of the WWE Universe have kept things going through the pandemic and into this new era? Potentially so, fans desprately wanted to see Cody Rhodes become the WWE Champion at WrestleMania 39, and it’s worth wondering how things would have changed if that was the direction the promotion decided to take.
Still, in the end, Reigns produced multiple great matches in the final year of his reign, launched Jey Uso into Superstardom, and helped to keep WWE the hottest ticket in town, even if he rarely showed up to said shows.
