Roman Reigns Explains Why Wrestling Moves Are “Vehicles To Trigger Emotions”

Roman Reigns has explained why he feels like wrestling moves aren’t necessarily as important as people think while adding that they are there to trigger emotions.

Every pro wrestler that makes it to the top becomes known for their signature moves. For The Rock, he had the People’s Elbow and Rock Bottom, Triple H used a Pedigree, The Undertaker had a Tombstone and Steve Austin had the “Stone Cold” Stunner, which might be the most popular finishing move ever. Going back to another generation, Hulk Hogan finished his opponents with a leg drop, Ric Flair used the Figure Four Leglock, “Macho Man” Randy Savage used the top rope elbow, and so on.

The Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns has his own signature moves like the impressive leaping Superman Punch along with a Spear, which harkens to his American football playing days.

As Roman Reigns heads into WarGames for the first time with The Bloodline at Survivor Series later tonight, he spoke to The Ringer earlier in the week about his career. During the discussion, Reigns talked about how doing a lot of different wrestling moves isn’t necessarily that important because what matters is how you trigger emotions.

“I look at the moves as vehicles to trigger emotion. Moves, especially the cool ones, they’re little micro moments in their own right. But in order to be remembered, you have to have the ability to make people feel. For me, the main thing is, how do you move people? Because a really cool move isn’t going to make people stand up, isn’t going to make people cry, isn’t going to make people get angry. You have to create those human connections.”

Reigns went on to say that many top guys in pro wrestling’s past didn’t necessarily have a lot of moves, but they were able to get those big reactions.

“The moves are just the moves. That’s why everybody who’s ever been in my position or considered a great, we’ve only got a few of them. We go out there and we know what buttons to push for our crowd and we create that emotional connection.”

Elsewhere during Reigns’ in-depth discussion with The Ringer, the Tribal Chief talked about how the 2020 rivalry with Jey Uso pushed him emotionally while he gave a lot of credit to Brock Lesnar going into their SummerSlam match since Brock became the “Cowboy” Brock character to freshen up that story.

The Bloodline, led by Roman Reigns, will go into Survivor Series WarGames tonight in Boston against the team of Drew McIntyre, Sheamus, Ridge Holland, Butch & Kevin Owens. The event is available to watch on Peacock in the US and WWE Network everywhere else.