#1: Roman Reigns aligned himself with Paul Heyman upon finally realizing what it takes to stay on top in WWE
For the most part, Paul Heyman has spoken on Roman Reigns' behalf ever since he became The Tribal Chief's special counsel. After years of portraying a babyface, Reigns developed a new attitude knowing that his efforts to cater to WWE fans will always be underappreciated.
Stumbling upon this realization made Roman Reigns hire Paul Heyman's services as special counsel. The main crux behind Roman's new attitude is that in the last few years, he did everything the right way to meet expectations and gain adulation from the fans. That didn't go in Reigns' favor until the leukemia announcement happened. Despite gaining favor with the fans after that point in time, Roman Reigns' character was still restricted due to his babyface role.
This time around, Reigns will do things his own way because that is what it takes to stay on top, and the fans have finally started appreciating him as a WWE character in 2020.
During an appearance on Corey Graves’ After The Bell podcast, Reigns explained how having Heyman by his side works to his advantage.
“I wanted a whole new presentation and we are going to continue to gradually do that. I thought what better way than to align myself with essentially a high powered attorney [Heyman]. If you take the top athlete in the world and mix him with a head mafia boss character, that’s who I am. The mob boss will go out there and do the hit himself but you have to have somebody dotting the ‘I’s” and crossing the “T’s” for you who understands the ins and outs and can add that new layer to the whole character and the personality.”
Although Reigns initially started out as a tweener after returning at WWE SummerSlam, The Tribal Chief's heelish attributes have taken the spotlight in recent memory. The transition towards becoming a full heel shows that Roman Reigns is willing to go to extreme lengths to stay on top in WWE, which is something his character wouldn't have understood a couple of years ago.