Paul Heyman Always Knew Roman Reigns Would Have Long Title Run
Paul Heyman is reflecting on the impressive championship run of Roman Reigns on the three-year anniversary of The Tribal Chief’s Universal Title win.
Today is the three-year anniversary of Roman Reigns winning the WWE Universal Championship in a triple threat match with “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman at a show called Payback 2020 in the WWE ThunderDome with no fans in attendance.
That epic title reign by Reigns sits at three years while he also won the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 38 in 2022, which was nearly a year and a half ago.
During the entire Tribal Chief run of Roman Reigns, Paul Heyman has been by his side as the “Wise Man” and Special Counsel. There was a period was aligned with Brock Lesnar instead of Reigns, but that was just a way to fool Lesnar and Heyman was back with Reigns after a few weeks.
On today’s episode of WWE’s The Bump on YouTube, Paul Heyman had a short reply when asked if he thought Reigns would have such a remarkable title run that started at WWE Payback 2020: “Yes.”
Not surprisingly, Heyman had more to say: “Yes, and I envision it three years from now, and three years after that, and three years after that.”
Roman Reigns Knew He Needed A Change, Says Paul Heyman
As the interview on The Bump continued, Paul Heyman spoke about how Roman Reigns knew he had peaked as “The Big Dog” character and needed a change.
“Roman Reigns wanted to be the greatest of all time. Roman Reigns wanted to solidify his legacy. Roman Reigns knew that he had peaked as the big dog, and there was nowhere left for him to go. Four WrestleMania main events, multiple heavyweight championships. What more could Roman Reigns have pulled off? Then he realized there is more. There is a higher mountaintop. There is more greatness to pursue.”
“There is the claim that John Cena could be the greatest of all time. There is the claim that Bruno Sammartino was the greatest champion of all time. These were all goals that Roman Reigns said, ‘We’re gonna go after them one by one, and like snipers, we’re gonna pick them off.’ So that’s what ended up doing. So yes, when Roman Reigns went after the championship, I knew he was going to be reigning at least this long, if not far longer. I knew the legacy that we were going to create, and we’re just getting started around here.”
Earlier this month, Roman Reigns beat cousin Jey Uso at SummerSlam to retain the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship thanks to Jimmy Uso turning on his twin brother Jey.
It’s not known when Reigns will defend his championship on television again since he works a reduced schedule, but we know Paul Heyman will be right by his side as usual.