Roman Reigns Discusses His Road to WWE, In-Ring Psychology, WWE Network

Yesterday, Wrestling Rumors noted that WWE Superstar Roman Reigns caught up with Coaster Boy Josh of ElvisDuran.com to talk about The Shield’s debut and much more. Below are other excerpts from the interview.

Regarding how he went from college football player to WWE developmental:

“Coming from our family, the WWE, they already knew about me, especially playing football in a Division I college. I had heard before they were interested in giving me a tryout and getting me down to the developmental system so I kind of had that in the back of my head, but once I knew this was something I wanted to try, I had a long talk with my dad and he made a few phone calls and I was fortunate enough to get a tryout.”

How his tryout went and how tolling on the body it was:

“My tryout was hell, man. When I came back from Tampa, I went down to Tampa for three days, trained every single day, watched the show, and from the very first day I was hooked. Because it felt like it was the hardest thing I had ever done. When I left the tryout, my whole back was black.”

He also discussed how difficult it is to learn good ring psychology, and how he was able to come up with ways to bring it in the ring himself.

“It’s a weird thing as far as what makes a good match. As far as learning the mental game. For me, being a football player, I’ve always been good at watching and watching tape. I talked to the Uso’s a good bit. I was actually neighbors with Jey Uso for my first six months down in developmental and we’d just sit on the porch all night just talking, talking, talking wrestling.”

Reigns also gave credit to the new WWE Network for keeping his passion with the industry and teaching him more and more about the business and what he can do in the ring.

“I still to this day with the Network…nonstop have this network on. I’ll have the TV on and the Network on my phone watching both of them. You can never watch enough wrestling.”

The former WWE Tag Team Champion also discussed The Undertaker’s streak, traveling with his friends in The Shield and much more. The interview can be found below.