Paul Heyman Shares That He Came Up With Roman Reigns’ ‘Tribal Chief’ Nickname, Vince McMahon Wanted To Reigns To Remain ‘The Big Dog’
Heyman further spoke about his pairing with Roman Reigns.
The newest episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet featured a sit-down chat with Paul Heyman. During the conversation, Heyman dove into his history with Roman Reigns.
Heyman remembers initially suggesting calling Reigns ‘The Tribal Chief’ and added that former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon was unsure about it.
“Well, you know, it’s just the little things that go into it. The first time I came up with Tribal Chief, (Vince McMahon said), ‘Really? You want to call him the Tribal Chief?'”
Heyman went on to add that McMahon wanted Reigns to keep ‘The Big Dog’ name and for Heyman to be his advocate.
“Oh, The Big Dog, Roman Reigns, with his advocate, Paul Heyman,” Heyman said about what Vince McMahon preferred. “I said, ‘Well, I can’t be his advocate as Brock Lesnar’s advocate. We have to have something different to Roman Reigns, and Roman Reigns has to be different. You got to pull the trigger on this. This has to be as much of a seismic shift as The Deadman becoming The American Badass. This is a whole new character. This is a whole new persona’ and he could not have played this persona earlier, because he was too young to do it. He needed to weather the storms to become the Tribal Chief. We grew up with him, almost like he was a child star, in that we saw him from his young days, fresh out of college, and he grew into this Tribal Chief.”
Reigns and Heyman officially split at WrestleMania 41, where Heyman betrayed both Reigns and CM Punk to side with Seth Rollins.
