Magazine Archives: The Cameo Chronicles: Roman Reigns

By Jimmy Van, as first seen in FightfulMag.com, issue 3

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It was August 2017 when I posted an unfortunate news update on Twitter regarding “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. His health condition had become a pretty public story, and I was told by someone close to him that he’d been placed in a medically induced coma. Of course, the good news was that Flair pulled through and went on to “style and profile” once again. But as my tweet made the rounds, several people questioned the legitimacy of the information and looked to “reputable” sources to confirm the news. That was Fightful.com at that time, especially in my position since I’m not now nor was I ever a news-breaking journalist; I’ve always left that to Sean Ross Sapp. Back then, even news broken by Sean was sometimes questioned for its legitimacy because he was still in a new position working with a new outlet. That’s the difference between then and now. Back then, people sought out other outlets to confirm stories reported by us. Today, people seek us out to verify stories reported on by others, which is an excellent turn-around over the span of a few years.

As great as things have become in that respect, something that remained a work in progress – although as of this writing is much improved – was our relationship with WWE in terms of landing talent interviews. The higher-ups knew Fightful and knew Sean but seemed to prefer to give interviews to more mainstream outlets as opposed to a knowledgeable, connected wrestling journalist. And we understood the deal. That’s the political landscape; it’s not uncommon in other forms of entertainment, but as mentioned it is changing and hopefully will continue to change. All that being said, by Spring 2020, when the pandemic hit and WWE’s business slowed down, we thought that WWE would rely on a platform such as Fightful more than ever to help promote their product. When that didn’t quite materialize, I came up with an idea initially intended to be a joke that ended up becoming somewhat impactful.

Cameo had become an outlet that WWE performers utilized to interact with their fan bases and to earn extra income. Probably the most talked about performer in WWE, if not all of wrestling at that time, was Roman Reigns, who famously pulled out of his WrestleMania 36 match with Bill Goldbergdue to Reigns being immunocompromised from his battles with leukemia. Braun Strowmantook Reigns’ place against Goldberg at the last minute, and Roman quietly disappeared, choosing to quarantine at home. He wouldn’t reappear on WWE television until SummerSlam almost five months later and, aside from the occasional webcam interview, maintained a low profile over that time.

In June 2020, I got an idea that I kept from Sean – let’s pay for a Roman Reigns Cameo video. This is the message I sent through: “Sean Ross Sapp is my managing editor at Fightful.com. He mentioned that you’re in lockdown and not really doing interviews, so Sean’s boss, me, did his job for him (jokingly) and got a comment from you myself (say whatever you want as the comment).” At that time, Reigns was often unavailable on Cameo. The website claimed that the average amount of time it took him to fulfill the videos he did do was around seven days. Surprisingly perhaps, my response came through in only two.

“What’s up, Sean Ross Sapp?” he started. From there, he basically recited my message almost word-for-word, confirming that he was sticking to a legitimate quarantine and staying locked down for himself, his family and his community. But it was his comment at the end that was the unintended news byte. “Hopefully, we’ll get back to normal soon. And I’ll be whipping everybody’s ass soon, and you can be writing all you want on Fightful.com about that. Everybody’s like, ‘why won’t he come back? When’s he gonna come back?’ and then when I come back and destroy everybody, they’re gonna be pissed. But it’s all good because I’m the best.”

Of course, when Reigns returned, he brought with him a new attitude and a new manager in Paul Heyman. He went on to become the top heel in the business as “Head of the Table” Roman Reigns. The words and the tone used in that Cameo video are commonplace in a Reigns promo on Friday Night SmackDown any given week today. But in June 2020, Roman Reigns was still positioned by WWE as a babyface, even though the crowd reaction was noticeably mixed, with many fans choosing to boo him as the supposed corporate choice. There had been pleas by WWE fans on social media for Reigns to turn heel, just as there had been a similar desire for John Cena to turn heel a generation earlier. Reigns, much like Cena, had yet to go in that direction creatively at that time. And so that simple, intended-to-be-a-joke Cameo video was viewed by many as the beginning of a Roman Reigns heel turn that ended up coming to fruition. Comments were posted on our social media, such as, “Heel turn might be coming!” and, “THIS is the Roman Reigns I wanna see.”

The video did over 60,000 views on social media and was reported on by various wrestling news websites. My Sean Ross Sapp rib had unintentionally paid off, and I joked with Sean on our podcast that that was the best $500 I ever spent.

So now, that one-off video has inspired a series for Fightful Magazine called The Cameo Chronicles. Who will appear next? Stay tuned to find out.

James “Jimmy Van” VanderLinden is the Wednesday co-host of Fightful Wrestling’s “The List & Ya Boy!” podcast and the Founder of Fightful.com.

Twitter: @jimmyvan74