Roman Reigns Discusses His COVID Experience, Says He Still Feels Chest Tightness

Roman Reigns was scheduled to defend the WWE Universal Championship against Brock Lesnar at WWE Day 1.

Unfortunately, hours before the event, WWE announced that Roman had tested positive for COVID and was pulled from the match.

Konosuke Takeshita: I'm Craving Your Belt, MOX

Reigns had missed live events leading up to Day 1, but it was announced that he tested positive for COVID, just that he missed the show due to "COVID effects."

Appearing on the SI Media podcast with Jimmy Traina, Reigns discussed his experience with COVID.

"For me, in comparison to some of the worst scenarios that are out there and we've seen through this process in the pandemic, it wasn't bad. For me, it was mainly a pretty good sinus infection, the bronchitis cough, a lot chest tightness. I still feel that, actually. When I'm doing my conditioning, because we don't wrestle quite as much as we're doing a lot of six-man (tag matches), I don't have singles matches as much as I used to, so I have to really push the conditioning on my own. I've noticed that in the past couple of weeks, when I really blow myself up on the bike or running, I can feel that tightness and a little bit of wheezing. It's definitely something serious. Someone who has been vaccinated and boosted, it still got to me and I still felt the effects. They weren't as severe as they can be for some, it did hang around and linger for a while. Obviously, I missed Day 1, I tested positive a week before that and it took me to where we were chasing that negative test and finally a few days before SmackDown the following week, I got the negative test," said Reigns.

Reigns returned to television on the January 7 episode of WWE SmackDown.

He is set to defend the WWE Universal Championship against Seth Rollins at WWE Royal Rumble. You can view the current lineup for the event by clicking here.

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.

Get exclusive pro wrestling content on Fightful Select, our premium news service! Click here to learn more.