WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns made some not-so-flattering remarks about AEW this week leading up to the “Supersized” edition of Friday Night SmackDown running up against a live episode of AEW Rampage. At one point, “The Tribal Chief” turned his attention to CM Punk, saying, “He’s older now. I haven’t really seen a full match. I’ve seen a clip or two. And to me, a step or two has been lost.”
Videos by ComicBook.com
Reigns then brought up Punk’s two losses in the UFC during his seven-year hiatus from pro wrestling — “Then also he got his whooped in the UFC. I don’t think anybody really believes someone 200 pounds soaking wet with no explosive bone in their body could ever really do anything to me. I’m 6’3″, 265 pounds, a legitimate athlete who can throw some weight around and has been on the gridiron at the highest level. D1. All ACC. I probably would’ve maintained in the NFL if my health issues didn’t happen when I was 22 years old. So, I mean, when it comes down to it, I’ll throw him and pretty much the rest of that roster out the club no problem. They’re just little brothers, you know?”
That wound up getting a reaction out of Junior dos Santos. The former UFC Heavyweight Champion, who made his in-ring debut for AEW during Rampage, tweeted on Saturday, “Hey @WWERomanReigns I heard your interview. Please send the address of this club you will throw me and my little brothers out of #AEW.”
Reigns explained elsewhere in the interview why he doesn’t see AEW as true competition.
“So me, I don’t see the real competition [with AEW] because I think their fan base legitimately is a hardcore fan base,” Reigns said. “So there’s like a ceiling and a built-in ground to that viewership. [The WWE is] trying to connect with everyone. We’re trying to connect with the mainstream. We’re trying to pull in the casual fan. We’re trying to engage the new viewer, while also servicing our hardcore fan base and give them compelling stories to fulfill them as well. I don’t know if I’ve said it before, but I’ve said it before, when the audience is probably the biggest character in your show, that’s strange to me. You’ll hear it all the time, the reviews and the comparisons. I think because they are the new kids on the block, they’re the cool kids in town I guess because of how premature and how novel it kind of still is, I think there still being babied by these hardcore wrestling fans. Which is fine. That’s great. I don’t think anybody’s going to ever, especially from a performance standpoint say, ‘Oh no, there’s more opportunities out there? That sucks.’ So it’s not a bad thing. It’s a great thing for professional wrestling. It’s just a weird argument because there’s so much bias and there’s so much, ‘I’m on this side and I’m not gonna open my mind to the other side.’ And it goes both ways.”
