Roman Reigns said WWE needs to find a younger star to one day take over the leading role that he and Cody Rhodes currently hold in the company.
In a recent interview on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay, the current World Heavyweight Champion talked about the need to prepare new talent for that responsibility.
The comments build on what Reigns had said about Rhodes in September, when he called him the only name capable of leading WWE after himself and John Cena. This time, however, the focus was on the next generation.
When asked who could take over that position, Reigns responded.
“Yeah, there has to be. I mean, you know, even within, you know, my career, we transitioned out of me briefly with Cody. Um, because it, you need as much talent as possible. You want to lift up as many as, you know, I mean, we want to have many tent poles holding this to scale it out, to make it as big as possible.”
Reigns continued, pointing out that he and Rhodes are practically in the same age group.
“Um, so a lot of people could be asked to take on that responsibility or help out, but yeah, I mean me and Cody are a similar age. I mean, I think I’m just barely older than him. Um, so yeah, we definitely need a younger guy to step into that role.”
In fact, both men are 41. Reigns was born on May 25, 1985, while Rhodes was born on June 30 of the same year, a difference of just 36 days.
Reigns also talked about what he believes a young talent needs in order to reach the top of WWE.
“So I think we have a lot of young talent, a lot of fresh faces. Uh, and at the end of the day, they just got to go through their 10,000 hours. They got to put that time in. Injuries are a part of it. And people don’t realize how taxing it is on your body because you’re doing this like you said.”
He then pointed to the physical toll that the pro wrestling schedule takes.
“You do it and guess what? You go to bed and you do it again the next day and you do it again the next day and you do it again the next day and you’re doing that 150, as you said, 150, 200 times. I think Ric said he was doing it, he did it like 300 times. I mean growing, he was doing it 300 times. He probably did it 400 a couple years where you do doubles.”
Although he did not name any specific wrestler as his successor, Reigns had previously spoken about the importance of helping younger talent. At the time, he said that sharing the ring with rising names can increase their value in the eyes of the audience, in addition to allowing them to benefit from the experience he has built up over the years.