In a recent interview with Ryan Satin as part of the Out Of Character podcast, Paul Heyman discussed several topics, including how proud he is of the work that Roman Reigns has been doing in the past several years, the storyline with The Bloodline and more.
Highlights of the interview are below:
On how proud he is of the work that Roman Reigns has been doing in recent years: “His ambition rivals Vince’s, he wants it and he wants greatness at a level that no one has ever achieved. All false humility aside, that’s always been where my mindset has been and he matches it, and indeed surpasses it, I have to constantly catch up to him and I love that. He wants every micro moment of every frame, of every scene that we do to be Academy, Emmy and Grammy award worthy, and strives for that and micro analyzes every frame that we’re in, so that the next frames that we are in are even better. The main event of most SmackDown’s or RAW’s that have the privilege of Roman Reigns appearing live, is a promo segment, we don’t even bother teasing you that he’s going to wrestle on television any more, we’re not going to bother with it, the story takes precedence over everything, and you’re going to see the next chapter of the story play out in a scene in the ring in a segment, it’s like 11 for SmackDown and 16 for RAW, that’s it. The backstage that we do now, if I told you that two years ago, you’d point your finger and laugh at me, you’d go this guy is out of touch, he has no clue where the business is headed. Plug in Roman Reigns and look at what we’ve done with it, we do movie scenes in the back now, we do scenes like out of Peaky Blinders or Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, or whatever the hot show is today.”
On the upcoming match for Reigns against Cody Rhodes, the storyline with The Bloodline and Sami Zayn being part of it: “The Sami story was easy, it’s acceptance, anyone that has been past eighth grade who has sat in the cafeteria has been, or have know people, or been involved with people and be like, I want to sit with those guys over there, they’re a**h***s, I know they’re a**h***s, but I want to sit there, they’re not even cool, they are just a**h***s, but they get all the attention. That is, in cafeteria terms, the island of relevancy, they’re relevant, I want to be relevant, to be relevant in this school, I’ve got to sit with them, they’re a**h***s, but I want to sit with them and walk up to them, I know I don’t belong here, I know I don’t fit in, but I want to sit at this table, I want to be accepted on the island of relevancy on the table of relevant kids in this high school, and guess what, you worm your way in, you sneak your way in, you connive your way in, you cajole your way in and you get in. Once you’re in, you’re there and you look around and you go, these guys are a**h***s. Cody is not about acceptance, Cody has a completely different story than has ever been told, it’s the most basic human emotion everyone can relate to. With the recent passing of a parent, there’s jealousy and there’s envy, because what you find out is that you had to share that parent with other people in life.”
The full interview is available at this link.
