Roman Reigns spoke with Brian Fritz of the Orlando Sentinel and was asked why he believes he still gets a negative reaction from some fans. “I think there’s a few different reasons why,” Reigns said. “You could name a bunch of them. I don’t think we could actually put a finger on one and say this is the reason why. Typically if you hear the boos, it generally is grown men my age and I’m not really in this business for the grown men. (laughs) I’m in this business for the families. That’s what we are; we’re a PG product. We’re a family-based product. We’re here to entertain families and give them enjoyment. If you’re a 30-year-old man and you want to flip me off at a kids show, then, hey, like I said, you paid your money but just be careful because you could get kicked out.”
Reigns also shared details of his recent nose surgery. “My nose is doing a lot better,” he said. “I can breathe and it’s straight so that’s good. That was what we were hoping for is to knock out two birds with one stone. I had a deviated septum which, if you’re not familiar with that, it’s pretty much the middle part that divides the divider of the nose so it’s kind of the inside of the nose. It was broken pretty much into an S or a V type look. So one of my nostrils was smaller that the other and due to travel, I go in and out of allergies. Anytime I would get any type of allergies, it makes your nostrils swell up and you can’t breathe and you get congested. I pretty much couldn’t breathe out of one nostril at that point and then it would close up the other one so I pretty much had half a nostril to breathe out of. So we needed to get that fixed. They went in a fixed the deviated septum. The outer part of my nose had been crooked and hit so many times over the past six months that it bowed on me so they went ahead and straightened that out for me. That way we wouldn’t have to do this all over again and take another two weeks or three weeks off. It was something I just needed to get done, that way I could breathe and continue to perform.” Read the full interview at OrlandoSentinel.com.
Powell’s POV: Roman should be in the business of at least trying to reach all fans. He hasn’t done enough to appeal to fans who are rejecting his character and his comments here are just the failure in that regard. I’m not saying he should kiss ass, but I feel there have been times when he’s added more fuel to the fire with his interview comments. Reigns also spoke about whether the timing of the surgery concerned him given that it’s so close to WrestleMania, whether he feels differently heading into his second WrestleMania main event than he did last year, whether he wants a match with The Rock, punching Vince McMahon, WrestleMania 33 going to Orlando, and more.
This commentary by Reigns is utterly naive. All of the so-called “fans his age” are people (like me) who grew up in the Hulkamania era and allowed the business to grow to where it is today, thus granting him the opportunity to be a star. We deserve credit for our multi-decade loyalty. His attitude is ageist to the extreme.