5 Backstage stories about Roman Reigns that you need to know

#2 Roman Reigns as the locker room leader

Reigns is a locker room leader

After Roman Reigns was sidelined back in October 2018, the entire WWE locker room stood behind him and shared some inspiring stories about the man behind The Big Dog. One of the most touching tributes came from Aleister Black, who was on NXT at the time but has toured on the main roster with Roman Reigns in the months before his announcement.

Black shared a lengthy tribute on Facebook:

When I started out in wrestling it wasn’t easy to get in as it is now. Back in 2000 wrestling, especially coming from the Netherlands, was still somewhat hidden. People weren’t eager to train you, and you’d have to seek out your training in different countries and finding people that wanted to train you. It wasn’t as easy as paying a school and just going there .I’d like to think that a part of my training enjoyed some classical aspects in the form of respect. Respecting other people’s moves, other people’s characters, and lockerroom etiquettes. Something that to an extend was also found in the Dojo’s that I used to train when doing Pencak Silat or Kickboxing.

Black went on to talk about his move up to the main roster back in 2017 where he was part of a feud with Curt Hawkins and he was able to tour with WWE through Europe and face the former Tag Team Champion regularly.

During the Live events, I’d make sure that the locker rooms were kept clean after the wrestlers were gone, the garbage was taken care of, towels were stacked and that post-match people had water, especially the upper card. Stuff that in my opinion is long forgotten and not practiced anymore, however, I feel that these things are important as they teach about respect and keep you humble, something very much needed in this generation. After a few nights we sat down as I also tried to let people get to know me as it is important for the people that you work with to see you and are able to interact with you, these are your colleagues and the people you work with for hopefully a very long and fulfilling time. During the sit down I got a chance to talk to Roman a little bit and we talked about tattoos, music, his background, and his heritage.

It was as part of this conversation with Reigns that Black recalled that the former World Champion had told him to relax and to stop thinking he had to clean the locker room because he belonged there. He had worked hard enough to get where he was and now was the time to enjoy it.

Despite not knowing Roman very well, despite having limited interactions with Roman I am very thankful for them. At the end of that same tour Roman told us to be thankful and that no matter what match you had, good or bad, the beauty was that we get to do it all over again the next day."