CM Punk: WWE Were Five Years Late On The Best Roman Reigns
"I just feel like he’s finally where they pushed him to be."
Jun 7, 2021
CM Punk believes Roman Reigns is currently doing the best work of his career, but has criticised WWE for being 'five years, 10 years late' to realise how he should be used.
In his current character iteration, as The Tribal Chief, Reigns has been one of the best aspects of the WWE product over the last year - a far cry from the heavily pushed babyface that WWE fans rejected in the late 2010s.
Punk is really enjoying what he is seeing from Reigns, saying he is the best individual WWE have at the moment, but feels WWE missed the mark with him by not committing to such a persona five years ago.
Speaking on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, Punk said: "I think a lot of times the best stuff, you’ve also kind of just gotta go with the flow with it. I’ll use Roman Reigns as an example, because if we’re talking about good stuff, if the WWE does anything good, I mean, this is the one thing that they’re doing right right now, right, is Roman Reigns.
"His character work, his in-ring stuff. It’s all great but I feel like, classic WWE, they’re always five years, 10 years late. This is something that they should’ve done originally, because they tried so hard to get this guy over as a babyface and they gave him X amount of ‘Mania main events. Like, ‘This is the guy, this is the guy, this is the guy,’ and he never really had his moments until now.
"Maybe he needed that adversity and that backlash to finally be this guy, but this is the one thing they’re doing right because what can you say bad about what Roman Reigns is doing right now? He’s far and away the best guy they have.
"When you talk about storylines, in-ring work, and all that stuff, right now he’s the total package. For the first time in his career, and I’m not being mean to Roman Reigns, I just feel like he’s finally where they pushed him to be. It just took a minute, you know what I mean?"
