Roman Reigns wants to be at his best during this time of the year. The WWE Universal Champion is currently preparing to defend his title against Seth Rollins at Saturday’s Royal Rumble pay-per-view.
“We’re in Mania season,” Reigns told the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast. “So this is when you really got to tighten down and this is when that positioning becomes very important and the jockeying for that political power And also just keeping yourself in the best light, and representing your individual product and brand of what you’ve been doing. Really is important.”
WWE is breaking from tradition this year by holding the Royal Rumble on a Saturday. In previous years, WWE held the Rumble on the Sunday between the NFL’s conference championship games and the Super Bowl.
This year, the NFL’s conference championship games will be played on the day after the Rumble. Roman Reigns says he’ll be in a hurry to return home so he can watch the San Francisco 49ers play the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship Game.
“As soon as the Rumble is done, as soon as I’m done doing whatever I’m doing, I’ll jump on a flight and get back home,” Reigns said. “So yeah it’s nice. Saturday seems to work out. I think for everybody, it seems to work out for our business model, our fans seem to like it. Because you know, you don’t have to wake up early for work, you have a full Sunday to recover whatever, however way you like to enjoy the rumble. And then for us performers, especially in a situation where we don’t have a Sunday live event to follow up, and we finally get to follow up, and we kind of get that chance, especially for the Smackdown folks.”
WWE is moving away from running most of its pay-per-views on Sunday nights. Its first pay-per-view of the year, Day 1, was held on New Year’s Day which was on a Saturday. Night 1 of WrestleMania will be held on Saturday, April 2 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
WWE has scheduled other pay-per-vews for Saturdays later this year. These include Money In The Bank (July 2), SummerSlam (July 30), and Survivor Series (November 26).
