Roman Reigns Is Risking Becoming An Afterthought in WWE

Written by AC Nicodemus • Published Aug 12, 2025 06:00 EDT
Roman Reigns is currently on a sabbatical from wrestling.

After a four-year domination as the top guy in WWE, Roman Reigns could very well be on his way to becoming a footnote due to several factors.

The Original Tribal Chief hugged the main event spot for years as The Bloodline ran roughshod throughout the Stamford-based promotion. He is also the holder of the fourth-longest world championship reign in company history, with 1,316 days as the WWE Universal Champion from August 30, 2020, to April 7, 2024.

Reigns’ multi-year reign finally came to an end at WrestleMania 40 after Cody Rhodes finished his story by dethroning him to become the WWE Universal Champion. Since then, The OTC only wrestled seven matches between 2024 to 2025.

His last one was a victory with his cousin “Main Event” Jey Uso against The Big Dogs (Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed) at SummerSlam Saturday on August 2, 2025.

From as early as 2022, Reigns has been working on a reduced schedule in order to keep his health in check, especially with his leukemia being in remission. However, as time goes by, The OTC has been transitioning into the part-time role despite having involvement in storylines.

With that, let’s take a look a factors that might make Roman Reigns an afterthought in WWE.

Roman Reigns barely appears nowadays and is focusing on his Hollywood career

After losing the WWE Undisputed Championship to Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 40, Roman Reigns sporadically appeared on the big occasions and only had a handful of matches throughout the year.

Reigns’ matches only centered around family and power disputes, especially The Tribal Combat, which took place on RAW on Netflix premiere on January 6. He beat Solo Sikoa to obtain the Ula Fala and finally cemented himself as The OTC.

Outside WWE, Reigns has been taking acting roles since 2016, whether in cameo or supporting roles. His most significant project to date is the upcoming Street Fighter movie, where he will play the role of Akuma, who is an alternative boss to another villainous character, M. Bison.

It is the major reason why The OTC got wrecked last week on RAW by Seth Rollins’ The Vision. This was to write him off WWE television so that he could focus on filming. This year, he also appeared in the film The Pickup as an MMA fighter. It was shown on Amazon Prime Video.

Reigns’ outside commitments are a huge factor as to why he’s barely appearing on WWE television these days.

Roman Reigns is not interested in extending his feuds anymore and has been replaced by Jey Uso in the main event scene

When Roman Reigns is involved in a storyline, it is only a one-stop gap, and no continuation follows suit, like the Tribal Combat he had with Solo Sikoa. For tag team matches, it only centers around battles within The Bloodline (his group and Sikoa’s faction).

Basically, it is only a one-time occurrence whenever Reigns shows up for a storyline.

Since his sabbatical from being a full-time performer, Jey Uso assumed the main event spot and performed well while in there. Main Event has been a World Heavyweight Champion, Intercontinental Champion, and RAW Tag Team Champion (now World Tag Team Champion) with Cody Rhodes.

Uso also has one of the best-selling merchandise items today and a catchy one-word chant, which always allows fans to go along. It is an indication that he has replaced The Original Tribal Chief as a main eventer in the Anoa’i family.

Given how absent Roman Reigns is nowadays, and how popular Jey Uso and some of the other babyfaces are becoming, Reigns could run the risk of becoming a footnote in WWE. Cody Rhodes is now the face of the company, CM Punk is the grizzled veteran, LA Knight is the highly popular babyface, and Jey Uso is slowly reaching the promised land.

To be honest, now that Brock Lesnar is back, WWE has a lot of star power to bank on instead of relying on The OTC. This could ultimately prove to be disastrous for him.