Roman Reigns says that if he could change one thing about his WWE career, he would have turned down more of what he was asked to do early in his main-event run.
Shannon Sharpe asked Reigns on Part 2 of his Club Shay Shay interview, released Wednesday, whether there was anything he would do differently.
“I probably would have said no a few more times early on, but I just, I didn’t have the equity within the company. I didn’t have, I wasn’t rooted well enough, you know, in the main event scene. I was still auditioning. I was still proving myself. I was still earning that equity,” Reigns said.
“This was like 14 years ago, and they’ll still quote me for saying sufferin’ succotash,” he said. “This was so long ago. It was 12 years ago. You know, I mean, I’ve delivered unbelievable work since then. But still, I’ll be tied to that.”
Reigns said there were not many moments he regrets, but there were “two or three promos or scenarios, segments or you know finishes of a match” he would go back and refuse: “Nah, not today, brother.”
Reigns used the “sufferin’ succotash” line on Seth Rollins on the January 9, 2015, episode of SmackDown, nearly 12 years ago. Jon Moxley told PWTorch’s Wade Keller in 2019 that Vince McMahon had Reigns say the line. Reigns had debuted on WWE’s main roster with Rollins and Moxley, then known as Dean Ambrose, as The Shield at Survivor Series 2012.
Reigns is the World Heavyweight Champion and retained the title against LA Knight at Money in the Bank on Saturday in New Orleans.
Analysis:
Reigns is right that he should have said no more often. Several of the ideas he was handed early in his main event run did not work, and they set him back with fans for years.
The “sufferin’ succotash” promo aired two weeks before the 2015 Royal Rumble in Philadelphia. Reigns won the Rumble, and the crowd booed him even as The Rock came out to raise his hand. WWE kept him in the WrestleMania 31 main event against Brock Lesnar anyway, and Seth Rollins cashed in Money in the Bank to win the title.
Reigns still overcame it. After he was paired with Paul Heyman in 2020, he held the Universal Championship for 1,316 days, from August 2020 to WrestleMania 40 in April 2024.
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