Roman Reigns Reveals the One WWE Universal Championship Match That Made Him Nervous

Roman Reigns has been world champion for over two years, taking on stars like Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Seth Rollins, Goldberg, Kevin Owens and Finn Balor on WWE's biggest stages. And while Reigns is no stranger to the spotlight, he did admit in a new interview with The Ringer this week that one championship defense made him particularly nervous. Back when Reigns first won the Universal Championship in 2020, his first opponent wound up being his cousin Jey Uso. Just as Reigns was first introducing his "Tribal Chief" persona, he brutally beat Jey at Clash of Champions 2022 to the point where Jimmy Uso had to throw in the towel on his behalf. 

"I've never been so nervous for anybody I've been in the ring with," Reigns said. "I want everybody to do good, but I'm not going to lower myself. I'm going to make everything look awesome as much as I can. So you have to keep up. At the end of the day, you have to be able to work up to this level and not seem out of place. And he didn't, man, in so many ways."

"I'm not going to dive into all the super backstage stuff, but there was no time to discuss," he added. "So there were a lot of instincts that were relied on. The fact that we have literally a brother-level connection and relationship, it made it really easy for us to just rely on our history and being comfortable with each other and also being able to push that type of emotion out of each other. I don't think anyone's ever pushed me emotionally like Jey has. And I think we did that for each other and we made a star out of him. I mean, even to this day, if he doesn't go through that process, I don't think he's doing what he's doing now at the level he's doing it at. It doesn't happen if he doesn't make those giant leaps he did two years ago."

Reigns would wind up defending his title against Jey again at that year's Hell in a Cell in the first Hell in a Cell I Quit Match. Both of the Usos would eventually fall in line and join Reigns as members of The Bloodline.