That's the real work, being away from my loved ones, my family, my household. There's nothing that's hurt any more than being away from my little girl and missing days, but I'm lucky.
— Roman Reigns
When I had my tryout, just from two days being in the ring, learning to bump, hit the ropes, and things like that, I came home, and my back was just one huge bruise.
It's always been my expectation to be the top guy, the face of the company, the one with all of that responsibility. But that should be everybody's goal. I didn't get into this to just be in the middle of the pack. If you want to do that, go work in a different line of work. This isn't the place to camouflage yourself.
To be honest, the cool thing about Cena is he's just in his gear all the time. He doesn't have to get dressed. He comes off his bus, and he's it. All he has to do is pull up his kneepads. You know who is kind of a new Cena is Ambrose. Ambrose can show up in his gear like he just changes his boots.
If I'm with my dad, yeah, he's going to talk a good bit about the business. He just kind of mentors me and tells me what he's thinking about my stuff.
The majority of critics, I would say, are people who have no clue what they're talking about and have never been in a wrestling ring. They've never been a public speaker. They wouldn't even know how to lock up with me if I allowed them to.
'WrestleMania' was the best day of my life, the greatest opportunity I've ever been afforded, but at the same time, no one wants to lose the main event for the WWE world heavyweight championship.
Everyone's been through hell to get where they are, and I'm not gonna let anybody talk down on what I've done just cause I didn't do what Daniel Bryan or your other favorite wrestlers did. Don't mean I didn't earn my spot.
If there's one thing I've shown, I'm not scared of physicality. I'm not scared to take some of my own blood. I play hurt; I play injured.
You never know what's going to happen with this crazy world of sports entertainment, so I would never rule out the fact that Rock wants to come home.
I think all The Shield boys will tell you we hold The Shield very dear to our hearts. That was our vehicle to where we are now, and to get out of developmental and out of that hot Tampa warehouse.
I don't think anybody else could have gone out there with Brock Lesnar and do what I did. I stand by that, and I'm proud of it. My father and my mother were in the front row watching, and they got to see their son go toe-to-toe with Brock Lesnar. Not many people can say that.
It was an absolute pleasure just to be able to tell my grandkids, 'Yep. I Superman-punched Vince McMahon right in the face twice.' You can put that on my mantle.
For the most part, I don't care what Dolph Ziggler is doing or that Seth Rollins worked out. I don't wanna watch a video of Cena power cleaning.
I've got a couple of grays in my beard and maybe a little salt and pepper in my hair. If I let my hair down and go through it, you'd see a good bit of grays. Maybe from the stress of the road and the crazy business I'm in.
Every wrestler I've ever had critique me, they were always into my stuff or what I'm doing out there. For a non-wrestler, someone who doesn't even know how to lock up, and if we did lock up, they wouldn't know what to do, for them to critique any of us, it really does pop me.
I try to live in the moment. When you're in a singles match, you're in there, and the guy's on top of you, and you're in a hold, and you're being smothered: You're in the fight at all times. But when we're doing these team fights, you have a little time to take in the moment and just absorb the energy of the crowd.
My process is walking down to the locker room, laying everything out to how I like it. I'm very particular about setting up my bags and my dressing situation. I love to pull out that portable speaker and blare music even if nobody else likes it. To me, its just keeping everything the same every single night.
The majority of the time... the people that are critiquing and bashing me, they're making me more relevant, I would think. If you didn't want me around, then just don't talk about me, and try and make it silent out there.
I can only do my thing and do the best that I can.
There is always the underground rapper people enjoy, and you want to see him come up. That's kind of how it is in wrestling.
Growing up, I've had plenty of obstacles, but to be honest, I didn't always have doubters. I was a standout athlete, so when that happens, you don't have too many people telling you 'You can't do this,' and 'You can't do that.' I've always been a bit of a people person and a hard worker.
I'm from a wrestling family, a wrestling dynasty. And as biased as that may be, I firmly believe I am from the greatest wrestling family of all time.
This whole wrestling world is a different breed, there's no doubt.
That's just what I want to do: Create a path that's unknown. It's hard in this business and this world we live in to trail-blaze. To create something different and do your own thing is hard nowadays. That's what I want to do. I want to take these matches to a whole new level and break that bar.
At the end of the day, all I can be is me. I'm not John Cena. In my 30 years, I've never been John Cena. I don't even think about becoming him. I just want to be - I want to be Roman Reigns. I want to do things my way. I think that's why I'm in the deep water with Vince McMahon and 'The Authority'.
Anytime you're out there in between those ropes, you always have to worry about fatigue. If you think about it, people get tired just doing cardio. You get tired doing cardio just by yourself. Now imagine running around, picking somebody up, picking you up, trying to pin you, trying to hold you down. It gets very tiring.
I don't care to read about anybody's Twitter. I don't care what you're eating for breakfast or where you just went. For me, it's mainly just to connect with my supporters and the people who are showing a mad amount of love.
I've loved to be a part of anything, having an opportunity to entertain, to be a part of a film, or just continue to do what I'm doing, I'm so happy, so just making town after town, doing my thing, but if I have that opportunity to star in a film or be an extra, I don't care; its all a learning experience for me.
I'm not a crazy Twitter guy to where I'm tweeting out stuff every day, and rarely even once a week do I tweet. But I mean, occasionally, I read some stuff.
Once I got a bit older, and we could see there could be a future in football, it was everyone's blessing to chase that dream. And it did me a lot of good: It put me through college, it gave me an education, it got me a little taste of pro ball and a lot of good memories. I don't regret any of it.
We always had so many kids in our family, running around the yard, sweaty little kids jumping in and out of the pool, the front door and back doors swinging open and shut, all of the parents getting pissed off telling us to stay outside.
The fans have to realize that as opinionated as y'all are in the way you want it, the company is the same way, and they're gonna do what they wanna do... at the end of the day, I'm just a guy getting rich.
If I can stay healthy, then I can wrestle every single week. I want to make every single town that I can, see the whole world, feel every crowd in every arena, and pull those emotional strings. I can't explain what it feels like to be in the center stage connecting with thousands of people, but I'm having the best time doing it.
People call us heroes, but we are nothing compared to our police force and fire fighters and everybody who protects us and makes sure our freedom is held to the highest standard.
If you're a Daniel Bryan fan, I'm all for that. The more people Daniel Bryan will bring into arenas, the better. The more people I bring in, the better. But when I'm talkin', shut the hell up and let me talk.
I'm not the only guy who doesn't have an independent wrestling background. You know, I have a football background, but I also have a wrestling one.
There's so many great matches that you can think of. I could fantasy book all kinds of stuff, you know, fight a few family members. If we could have Umaga back, I would love to wrestle him in any arena in any town just because of how good he was.
Don't focus on the negativity. Focus on the positivity and the people that want you to do well; then, do it for them and for yourself. Sometimes I do things for myself. Sometimes I do things for my family. Sometimes I do things for my friends.
When it comes to representing the WWE, I don't like calling myself the 'face of WWE' because we have so many faces and so many superstars. We are a team, we're a roster, and we're a locker room. It absolutely takes every man to make this ship sail.
I enjoy being a singles guy. I enjoy commanding the stage with myself and an opponent. It's a different process when you're teammates. Especially with the way we work. We're very unselfish with how we work together in so many different regards. Not just what you see as the final product of the match. Just strategizing, psychology, teamwork.
The crowd is the crowd. You're gonna take them as an individual performer how you take them. The key is how do you learn from them. How do you use whatever is happening reaction-wise to get better.
