10 Fascinating WWE Backstage Facts About Roman Reigns
6. He Had Legitimate Heat With CM Punk Following Their 2013 Feud
Is CM Punk actually a divisive performer, or is just that he's more vocal than most would prefer?
It makes for a tricky debate. Punk has always been the talk of the town because he refuses to hold back, making his eventual tell-all shoot interview such a lucrative entity, and when he was in WWE, this was absolutely a key factor of his character. The Pipebomb was so hot as an angle that it led John Cena, WWE's PG Hulk Hogan, to a five-star match that played out as a five-star match.
Roman Reigns, though, isn't a fan - and he's not shy about it.
Reigns and Punk worked a ton during the latter's final fourteen months in WWE, their solitary singles bout - televised or otherwise - being a whimper of a match from Raw's 6 January 2014 broadcast, in which Reigns went over and he still had the audacity to be p*ssed, the cheeky git.
Telling the Load Management podcast in 2020, Reigns detested CM Punk - but what's best for business overruled this (h/t Sportskeeda Wrestling):-
"If you've watched wrestling for the past 10 to 15 years and you love it and it's within your blood, then you probably have some kind of feelings about that guy. I know I do. Just by doing one of these things, he made my job a lot harder over 5-10 years ago. But if it's something that the fans can get behind and that it can really make them sink their teeth into the product and really dive into the creative with us, I'm willing to do it."
It's not a confined bit of backstage heat, either...