MVP says calling Roman Reigns an industry plant is ridiculous, and he answered it with a line he took from a backstage row at Impact. The take came from Conrad Thompson. MVP addressed it on Marking Out, and started by giving Thompson the part of the argument he thinks holds up.
“I can maybe see what he’s talking about only insofar as traditionally the biggest stars that we’ve had in wrestling have had mainstream crossover appeal. John Cena, like you don’t have to watch wrestling to know John Cena. The Rock, Stone Cold. Their fame transcended beyond pro wrestling,” MVP said. “I don’t necessarily see Roman Reigns having the same level of popularity outside of wrestling.”
He ran the test himself.
“You walk down the street and ask 10 people, do you know John Cena? Six or seven of them are gonna say yeah. Walk down the street and ask 10 people, do you know Stone Cold Steve Austin? Do you know The Rock? Do you know Hulk Hogan? Yeah, they know,” he said. “I don’t know if Roman Reigns has that same mainstream crossover appeal.”
That, in his view, is a separate question from whether the man draws.
“In terms of being the man for WWE, the numbers say different. His merch sales, ticket sales,” MVP said. He reached for something Brock Lesnar once explained to Omos about being box office. “If you do a show in some location and Roman Reigns is not on the card, and you sell 20,000 tickets, if you add Roman Reigns will be in the tent, you’re going to sell another 5,000 tickets. So I disagree very strongly with Conrad. The industry plant, I think that’s absolutely ridiculous.”
On the push itself, MVP said that is how every star has ever been made.
“Every star is, as they like to say, crammed down your throat. That’s how you become a star. Vince, back in the day, decided this is the guy I’m going with, and you beat everybody,” he said. “But with Roman, it seemed like it was maybe 10 years of that. Maybe it took a little longer for him to catch on. But I don’t think you can deny now his star power in wrestling.”
Part of what changed, in MVP’s telling, was the man standing next to him. He said Reigns hit his stride after the pandemic and that Paul Heyman contributed a lot to it.
“I would be willing to bet that Heyman contributed a lot to his growth. I think he would probably tell you the same thing,” MVP said. “I don’t think there’s anybody that’s worked closely with Heyman in that dynamic, that relationship, that didn’t grow coming out of it.”
He was quick to say the man is not universally loved.
“Everybody don’t love Heyman,” MVP said, before listing the people he thinks would speak well of him. “Ask Brock Lesnar what he thinks about Paul Heyman. Ask Roman Reigns what he thinks about Paul Heyman. Ask CM Punk what he thinks about Paul. And not that I’m even on that level, but ask MVP what he thinks about Paul Heyman.”
His conclusion was that the record speaks for itself.
“Most of the guys that are in some kind of working relationship with Paul Heyman come out of it better for it,” he said.
Heyman has managed Lesnar, Punk, Reigns and Seth Rollins across two decades in WWE, and ran ECW before that. MVP worked with him during his own WWE runs.
He also made a prediction.
“I will bet a dollar to a dime that at some point Roman is going to go the way of The Rock and become a movie star. He has got the presence, the good looks, the charisma,” MVP said. “Roman Reigns will be an actor. He will be a television star. He is that dude.”
That prediction took the conversation to the man who already did it, and MVP was blunt about where The Rock stands now.
“I am a fan of The Rock. He’s one of my all-time favourites, no question about it,” MVP said. “But his Hollywood career, if we’re keeping it real, has been struggling a little bit lately.”
His example was the live-action Moana, which he said roughly broke even, and his view is that it has been a while since a genuine hit. He immediately put it in context rather than leaving it as a criticism.
“Twenty years. Even Arnold, Stallone, these guys, after a certain amount of time it kind of tapers off,” he said. “I’m not disparaging the man. I’m just alluding to, is he as hot as he was?”
MVP’s answer to that is a change of direction.
“Sometimes you got to go away to come back and be a star again,” he said. He pointed out that Johnson can sing and has played guitar publicly, and said the ability is there.
The part that interests him is the scoreboard.
“If he decides to go down the music lane and put out a country and soul album, he has a built-in audience of people that are just, because they like him, they’re going to give his endeavour a chance,” MVP said. “But how is he going to be measured? Because he’s The Rock. If he puts out an album, it’s not 10 times platinum. Did he fail? If he puts out an album and sells a few hundred thousand, is that a failure?”
MVP has released music himself and said his own reason for doing it was never to become a rap star.
“I had a talent, something that I enjoyed doing, and had an outlet to be able to do it,” he said.
He also drew a distinction between what Johnson has done on stage and what a real music career asks of a person.
“For him to go out there in front of people and cut a promo is one thing. But if you’re going to tour and perform and sing, that’s something new,” MVP said. “He sat out there on a stool with his guitar and sang some songs, but he didn’t do a 45-minute set of music. That’s a big difference. There would be aspects of that he would have to learn, that he would have to get comfortable with. But if anybody can do it, that dude can.”
He also revisited the moment he calls one of his favourites in wrestling, when fans chanted that The Rock had sold out after he left for Hollywood, and Johnson agreed with them, listing the buildings he had sold out instead.
The line he finished on came from an argument he watched years ago. MVP was working for Impact when Jason Hervey, who was producing the show through the company he ran with Eric Bischoff, got into it with Austin Aries backstage.
“Hervey was a little pushy, telling Aries to get ready, and Aries and Hervey had a heated exchange, and Austin Aries said something that I’ll never forget, and I’ve carried it with me for a long time. Especially when it comes to wrestling and podcasters and dirt sheets,” MVP said. “He said, I can do your job, you can’t do my job. So to that I say, Roman Reigns can do Conrad’s job. Conrad, in no capacity, could do Roman Reigns’ job.”
He was careful about the man rather than the take.
“I don’t know Conrad personally, but I know he’s been real successful doing podcast shows with actual wrestling stars who know what they’re talking about,” MVP said. “Conrad is a podcaster, a fan who is entitled to an opinion. But I don’t know how you can intelligently detract from Roman Reigns and what he’s contributed to the wrestling world.”
Reigns is the World Heavyweight Champion and defended against Penta on Monday’s Raw in Mexico City.
