WWE News: Roman Reigns on lessons he learned from Vince McMahon

On a new episode of Stephanie McMahon’s “What’s Your Story?” podcast, Roman Reigns opened up a bit about his experience working with Vince McMahon in WWE.

Reigns noted that, as the youngest of the top stars WWE produced during the McMahon era, he didn’t get the same amount of time with McMahon as people like Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, or The Rock did. McMahon’s time leading WWE creative ended in 2022 amid a misconduct scandal, and he resigned from the company entirely two years later following the sexual assault/trafficking lawsuit that was filed against him by former WWE employee Janel Grant.

Though he didn’t work with McMahon as long as other top guys did, Reigns said he still made sure to learn as much as he could.

“That’s who I cut my teeth negotiating with, doing business with was your dad,” Reigns told Stephanie. “And that’s how I feel: I’m not intimidated by anybody anymore.

“There were times where I had to get used to him and we had to learn each other’s ways. But I’m the youngest of all his top guys, you know? So I didn’t have that relationship like a lot of the other guys were afforded in the time.

“Compared to anybody else, Hogan or Steve or Dwayne, those guys, I don’t think I got as much of his time, but I was picking up as much knowledge as I could. He may not even realize it, but there’s a lot of things that he said to me that I continue to use. I just tore it completely out of his playbook.”

Reigns did not address McMahon’s personal scandals here but has expressed sympathy for Grant in the past and called the McMahon allegations a stain on WWE

During the “What’s Your Story?” episode, Reigns discussed the biggest lessons he learned from McMahon on both a personal and business level.

“He would always tell me, and this is when I was so locked in at work that I wasn’t holding up my end on the other side. And he would just tell me, ‘You got to be present. When you go home, you have to be present. It doesn’t matter what you do out here, you have to be present.’ And I took that to heart so much,” Reigns said. “Sometimes it’s the other way now. Now, it’s hard not to be present when I’m not home, when I’m not with my children. Because that’s where I really want to be, is with my wife and my children. But those were just one of those funny lessons of just seeing what he’s talking about, and then seeing it evolve in my own life.”

Reigns said that, in business, one of the things he learned from McMahon was that you should always be ahead of the curve but not too far ahead. In WWE, Reigns had the goal of being the first person who could truly juggle outside stardom with his WWE work while not having to choose between them.

“I’m always going to be a WWE Superstar. I’m always going to be Roman Reigns. And I don’t want to ever have to [choose],” Reigns said.

Reigns has a match coming up at WWE’s Clash in Paris PLE this Sunday, where he’ll face off against Bronson Reed.

Grant’s lawsuit against McMahon remains ongoing with WWE also named as a defendant in the suit.

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