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Roman Reigns is a former WWE World Heavyweight Champion who was introduced to the WWE Universe as the brute force behind The Shield.
Over the past three years since The Shield's original split in the spring of 2014, Reigns has been groomed to take over the top spot in the company, a place that will be left vacant when John Cena finally decides to walk away.
Reigns has been a superstar that the WWE Universe has loved to hate. Thanks to Chairman Vince McMahon's love of the Samoan star, it seems that the loyal members of the audience enjoy booing Reigns out of every building that he enters. As they say in the wrestling world though, "any reaction is better than no reaction at all."
The WWE Universe has known the star who is on the screen on WWE TV every week, but they don't know the man behind the character, so here are six real-life stories that will introduce Roman's loyal fanbase to the man behind the on-screen persona.
#6 Roman Reigns and Galina Becker
Unlike many other wrestlers who perform on WWE's main roster, Roman Reigns was already in a relationship when he debuted on WWE TV and finally married his girlfriend of almost a decade Galina Becker back in 2014.
Roman and Galina met when they were both attending The Georgia Institute of Technology. Whilst in college Reigns played football whilst his girlfriend was on the track and field team. Both Galina and Roman then studied management together and it is thought that this is where they first met.
Reigns talked about his relationship with his wife as part of Unfiltered with Renee Young where he revealed that his life was so much easier when he and his wife first met and he wasn't travelling the world on a regular basis.
Reigns recalled: “When we first met we were just having fun, and we were kind of like glued to each other and just not having a care in the world or [worrying] about anyone but us, but I’m a grown up now.”
#5 Roman Reigns and Blue
Roman isn't a superstar who talks about his personal life a lot, but on a recent episode of WWE Ride Along, Roman shared the story of how he met Shield teammate Dean Ambrose's dog Blue and the duo didn't get along right away.
Roman informed fellow stablemate, Seth Rollins, that he was invited to Ambrose's home in Las Vegas and Ambrose asked if he wanted him to give him the tour. At this point, Reigns had already taken his shoes off and was walking around Ambrose's house in just his socks, when Blue decided to come and meet his owner's friend.
It seems that Blue wasn't exactly friendly with Reigns the first time he met him and decided to attack his feet to the extent where Roman thought he was going to eat them, which left the former United States Champion with the feeling that The Lunatic Fringe's dog didn't like him.
Roman did recall that he met him backstage at RAW a few weeks later and he seemed to be much more relaxed, so it could have just been the fact that Roman had decided to invade his home.
#4 The time Jey Uso made Roman cry
Roman Reigns has had many emotional moments as part of the WWE main roster in recent years, one of his most emotional perhaps being when he essentially retired The Undertaker back in April following their WrestleMania match.
It seems that Reigns didn't recall this as the last time he had actually cried about wrestling, instead, he told a story about a time when his "brother" Jey Uso treated him to a meal at a restaurant and the duo started talking about their wrestling careers.
Reigns was part of the FCW brand at the time, back in 2011 when Jey and his brother Jimmy were already part of WWE's main roster and Roman was still considered to be a newcomer to the business.
Reigns recalled that Jey had asked him to lay out his whole career on the table and tell him how he would book his way to the FCW Heavyweight Championship, which is where he realised that he wasn't on the same level as Jey at that point in time. He said that the pressure of the conversation was overwhelming and it made him quite emotional.
"I just wasn't on that level with him, and it kind of broke me down because I felt like I wasn't going to learn fast enough and become what I should be and what my family needed me to be. I think the pressure and just the emotion of that made me crack that night."
He continued: "I didn't know what to do and it was so frustrating because I wanted to be the best. I want to be the absolute greatest to do that, and I had that mindset since Day 1. Like anybody who is attached to anything or has a deep passion for it, it can strike those nerves and that night it did."
#3 Roman Reigns and his brother
Roman Reigns comes from a big Samoan family, one that is connected to many other Samoan superstars and although they are not blood relatives, they are all considered to be family.
Roman Reigns does have a brother who he is related to by blood, former WWE star Rosey who sadly passed away earlier this year. Reigns and his brother were quite close, something that the WWE Universe wasn't aware of until after his death when Reigns finally opened up about his personal life.
Reigns stated that Rosey was his biggest fan, he never missed any of his matches and was always there to offer him advice following his matches to help him succeed in the wrestling business. Reigns stated that every match that he has in WWE moving forward would be to honour his brother and his legacy which shows just how close-knit a family the Anoa'i's really are.
#2 The tattoo from a coat hanger
Before Roman Reigns decided to try his hand at wrestling, he was considered to be a football player with a huge amount of potential. Reigns played football at Pensacola Catholic High School under a coach called Greg Seibert, who shared an interesting story about the former linebacker.
Seibert stated that Reigns returned to training in his sophomore year with a letter 'L' branded on his arm. When asked how he got what was considered to be his first tattoo, Reigns revealed that he had done it himself with a heated coat hanger and the 'L' stood for his birth name which is Leati.
Seibert realised at this point that Reigns had something of a crazy streak if he was willing to burn himself. He recalled that the former World Champion was someone who instilled fear in others, which helped him throughout his career as a footballer.
#1 Roman's life growing up in the shadow of his family
Roman's father was one half of the Wild Samoan's and as a WWE Hall of Famer, he was a huge star throughout Reigns' childhood. Roman's brother Rosey was 15 years older than Reigns, and he recalled that the family were forced to move around a lot when he was just five-years-old. Children in his schools would find out who his father was and decide to air their opinion on him as a wrestler before he was forced to move away again.
Reigns wasn't born into this world until much later and by this time the family had already built their own ring in the back garden and had all developed their own wrestling personas. Reigns was a huge fan of Bret Hart and recalled always wanting to be just like him.
“Every time he’d come out with that leather jacket and give his sunglasses away to a kid in the crowd, I used to dream about being that kid. That hair, all that gear. To this day I still think he has kickass gear. He seemed like a standup guy. A really nice dude. He is a very cool dude.”
Whilst Reigns is often hated for the fact that he was pushed to the main roster of WWE in less than two years, the fans don't realise that he grew up in a family full of wrestlers, he has always been around the business and even though he never toughed it out on the indies, he was still part of the Anoa'i family and endured the same kind of wrestling-obsessed upbringing.
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