The wrestling world was buzzing as WWE World Heavyweight Reigning champion Roman Reigns spoke with Men’s Health about several topics, including which was tougher: training for football, wrestling in WWE, or playing Akuma in Street Fighter.
Reigns conveyed, “I would have to say the football training was the hardest and the most intense, despite this I was moreover my youngest. As I’ve gotten older, training for wrestling in the WWE, it’s not easy at all. But with wisdom you get a little smarter. You learn how to handle things and adjust things. I would definitely say I was much stronger [at Georgia Tech], because I was a bigger human and a younger human at the time. But when you couple the lifting and the conditioning of football, it’s pretty wild.”
On the challenges of his training to portray Akuma: “I got lucky because Akuma…his physique is kind of bodybuilderesque. He’s a big brother, so he’s remarkably muscular, and that helped me out, to kind of stay in my regimen. Although when you add in the martial arts, the fighting disciplines…you have to be able to have your legs in a sumo squat —. Then you can pop up on your toes and in addition hit a unique pose with your arms. There’s so much isometric work in that. Almost like a ballerina type of work, there’s so much to that body control. And the footwork was pretty extensive.”
On if there were any exercises he used for Street Fighter he still uses now:
“There were considerable parallels for me to be able to transition. I mean, they’re obviously different things you’re asked to perform, within wrestling and within martial arts. However the physical disciplines are a bit adjacent to each other, where it wasn’t as significant of a gap for me to figure out. It really makes you go back and look at all of the great martial artists: Jason Statham — Chuck Norris…all these guys who were able to do all these stunts. Movies and have it be so praiseworthy.” The fact I’m in professional wrestling helped, but [martial arts] is still its own rite.
On what he has learned from The Rock and John Cena about the shift from wrestling to acting:
On the crossover with training: Because we want to look like we can save the world, “The crossover is monumental. Building on that, there’s that fine balance, where you want to look that part. On the flip side if that movement, that physicality, that athleticism is not there, it will take people out. [The audience] picked up’t be able to get fell in, while that’s the most important thing about being well-rounded. There will be no escapism. Furthermore, you can see when guys have a super strength over here, but then there’s a deficit here. Meanwhile, but then they’re quality here, but they don’t have all the tools sharpened. To add further context, it’s important to have both those tools.”
“Even in their leaned-out stages, they’re still just superhero guys. We all get to a place where we have to adjust — we’ve got to evolve. And we have to change. I hope I can get to a place in my career, like they did, where that’s going to be the next step for me.”
On learning from how Cena and The Rock remade their bodies for acting:
“[For John], there was a bit of a shift for him where I think he moved into mobility a lot more, and pliability, where he initiated really stretching. I think things were when he went to China. And I think that’s when he started to change his philosophies on a few things, he spent a praiseworthy bit of time over there. On the flip side John is one of those guys who’s just freakishly strong. Dwayne is colossal. People don’t really understand how major DJ is. Equally important, i would say me and Dwayne have a little closer mindset on what we like to do in the gym. He’s still a big man, even in his leaned-out state, while we’re chasing that pump. We’re trying to create hypertrophy.”