A massive congratulations is in order for Roman Reigns on hitting the 8-year mark since joining the main roster at Survivor Series 2012 as one-third of The Shield. All three original members have gone on to hold multiple world titles and become extremely successful. Roman was always portrayed as a character who was primed for the business and mentally built to handle the responsibility of being the potential face of the company in his NXT days for about two years before officially joining the main roster. This was of course shortly after his days playing college football as a defensive lineman at Georgia Tech.
I liken the career path of Roman Reigns to that of John Cena because he bears a similar amount of responsibility as the face of WWE that John did not all that long ago. Cena was just a couple of years younger than Reigns when he made his debut on the main roster in 2002. Cena made his debut in the summer of 2002, so he hit the 8-year mark in the summer 2010. The true Hall of Fame portion of John’s career came after this point, so the same might be true for Roman Reigns. The remainder of Roman’s career will be extremely interesting around the intricacies of how it unfolds – it will hopefully be even greater than the first eight years.
Looking back, the leukemia diagnosed about two years ago might have been the most important event of The Big Dog’s character evolution. This recent character change is easily the most authentic for Roman. It’s absolutely wonderful to see him embodying what is natural for him, because audiences gravitate most toward true authenticity.