What’s the story?
Roman Reigns recently made an appearance on Chris Jericho’s podcast Talk is Jericho. During the podcast, Reigns spoke about his career, his run in the WWE and The Undertaker. He also revealed the origins of his name.
In case you didn’t know...
Roman Reigns is currently competing on WWE’s RAW brand. Reigns recently faced off against the Undertaker at WrestleMania 33, where he ended up defeating the phenom, possibly retiring him.
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Since then, Reigns has been embroiled in a feud with Braun Strowman, with ‘The Monster Among Men’ having repeatedly attacked Roman in the weeks following WrestleMania. The two are scheduled to go one-on-one at WWE’s Payback Pay-Per-View on April 30th, 2017.
Before his WWE debut, Reigns was a part of WWE’s developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), where he was known as Roman Leakee (a play on his real name Leati), he was repackaged as "Roman Reigns" in August 2012, after FCW was rebranded by the WWE as NXT.
The heart of the matter
During the podcast, Chris Jericho asked Roman Reigns about the origins of his name. Reigns responded by talking about how he and current WWE commentator Corey Graves came up with the name.
Roman was quoted as saying:
"I knew I wanted Roman, I liked Roman. I wanted Roman only and they were like, 'No, you need a last name'. And there's actually another guy in FCW by the name of Calvin Raines. He spelt it like 'rain', like a 'raindrop'. And they, I believe, released him and sorry, brother. He's a good man, a real nice brother. Sorry. Roman Raines sounded good to me, so they were like, 'Alright, give me four or five different names.' "
The wrestler that Roman referred to, Calvin Raines (real name Patrick Brink) was released by WWE in 2009, re-hired in 2010 and released again in 2012, the two were part of the then-developmental territory of WWE, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW).
Reigns then went on to talk about how Corey Graves inspired him to change the spelling of “Raines” to “Reigns”:
"He's actually one of my good buddies and our families are, like, really good friends, he told me, he was like, 'Hey, I heard you saying Roman Raines' What if you spelt it like, 'reigns', like a king reigns. And I was like, 'Whoa, I like that.' And there you go. And total heel name too!"
Roman Reigns also spoke about other topics during the podcast, such as his family, footballing career, the heat he gets from the fans and more.
What’s next?
Roman Reigns took the week off to (kayfabe) nurse the injuries sustained at the hands of Braun Strowman last week. However, due to the untimely passing of his elder brother Matt Anoa’i (better known in the WWE as Rosey), it is unclear whether Reigns will be back next week.
Reigns’ match against Braun Strowman at Payback is still scheduled to happen, however, with rumours of a possible stipulation being added to the same.
Author’s take
The name Roman Reigns certainly gives off a very regal and dare I say, “legendary” vibe. The name suits Roman’s personality and his character and he must thank his stars that Corey Graves was on hand to recommend the spelling change!
As Shakespeare once said though, “What’s in a name?”, I firmly believe that regardless of what he called himself, Roman Reigns would have been successful in the WWE. He is an incredible worker and puts everything into every match he is a part of.
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