Triple H Praises Roman Reigns Following the WWE Money in the Bank Main Event

WWE's Money in the Bank pay-per-view saw Roman Reigns once again retain his WWE Universal Championship, this time by beating Edge thanks to interference from Seth Rollins. "The Tribal Chief" will now face a returning John Cena with the title on the line at SummerSlam, which is arguably the biggest match WWE can put on right now without the inclusion of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Triple H spoke with Sports Illustrated this week to give his thoughts on the pay-per-view and spent a decent chunk of time praising Reigns' work as a dominant heel champion.

"Roman is the biggest star in WWE, he's the biggest star in the industry," Triple H said. "He perfected his craft at a really hard time to do so with no fans. He put so much into his character work, and his reaction to Cena was as powerful as the moment itself.

"Watching that, I couldn't help but think back to how long he's been doing this and some of the tougher times he's been through," he continued. "Right now, he's performing on a whole other level. He's at the point where he is no longer thinking about the character, he just is."

Reigns gave a number of interviews leading up to Money in the Bank where he reflected on WWE's time spent in the ThunderDome. The company has officially returned to touring after being shunted into the WWE Performance Center back in March 2020.

"The live crowd has always enhanced my presentation," Reigns said (somewhat in-character) while speaking with CBS Sports. "My reactions have always been, if not the very best, certainly up there with the very best. I've now showcased the layers as a performer to be able to do it without a live audience. I've had a strong hold on SmackDown and SmackDown being the very best portion of WWE. It's shown me as the number one guy.

"That's my legacy coming out of the ThunderDome," he continued. " Hands down, without question, it can be debated for great content on social media and WWE.com to put these polls and try to make an argument. But there's no argument. There's been nobody to ever carry the WWE product like I have over the past year and I stand on that. You can throw anybody out. We can try and be nice and say, 'Oh, Bayley! She just got hurt. She was the best.' Come on, let's not lie to ourselves. The Tribal Chief has carried the WWE for well over a year now and there's no denying it."