Paul Heyman Names Roman Reigns’ Ultimate Challenger in WWE

Roman Reigns officially became the fourth-longest reigning world champion in WWE history this week, officially surpassing Pedro Morales’ 1,027-day reign from 1971-73. Reigns isn’t expected to defend his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship again until SummerSlam in August, as he’ll be busy at Money in the Bank next weekend in London taking part in a “Bloodline Civil War” tag match with Solo Sikoa and The Usos. Paul Heyman was on The Pat McAfee Show this week and discussed Reigns’ success, saying the only true challenger for “The Tribal Chief” is himself. 

“That’s really Roman’s greatest challenge in life is topping himself. The Roman Reigns of tomorrow has to be better than the Roman Reigns of today, and the Roman Reigns two days from now needs to be better than the Roman Reigns tomorrow. So the only true ‘challenger’ to Roman Reigns is himself, that he has to be constantly better; he can never truly peak because once he peaks, that’s it, we’ve reached the apex, it’s time to go do something else. But in challenging himself to be greater tomorrow than he is today … then we are constantly evolving and ‘The Tribal Chief’ gets better and better,’” Heyman said (h/t Wrestling Inc.) before claiming Reigns is only in the “sophomore” stage of his career. 

Elsewhere in the same interview, Heyman gave his two cents on The Usos recently splitting from The Bloodline. The brothers opened this week’s SmackDown by blaming Heyman for corrupting Reigns, then closed the show by attacking Sikoa. 

“Listen, this is growing pains,” Heyman said somewhat dismissively. “The Usos are now experiencing the same growing pains that they did when they were children and they always were second to Roman Reigns. Whether it be on the football field or the house, who got the better food for the better nutrition to build the better body, or who could just whoop who’s ass in the backyard. It was always The Tribal Chief who remained dominant over the twins. And it did take two twins to put one Tribal Chief down. I love the twins. I love Jey and Jimmy. And I hope that they will display the same greatness that they did as the greatest tag team champions of all time when they take their beatings from Roman Reigns and Solo at Money in the Bank on July 1 in London. And I’m very proud of them for being willing to take those beatings.”