Paul Heyman reveals what the original idea was for the return of Roman Reigns in 2020

Heyman: “Vince thought the couch was not opulent enough for a character that was then going to end up being called The Tribal Chief. I can’t disagree with him, but we were in a rush to get that done.

Well, the original idea was for us both to return at SummerSlam, and then be on TV that Friday and lead into Payback that weekend that we built to in the rematch where the title went to the Tribal Chief Roman Reigns.

I thought let Roman return, give that moment to The Big Dog, and then that Friday on television, he’s not cooperative in the triple threat, he’s not cooperative with Adam Pearce, you know something’s up, but you can’t put your finger on it.

Go to him sitting on the couch, and Pearce is looking over going, what the f*ck is Heyman doing there?! But you don’t know that Heyman sitting there, and at the last second pull out because Roman says, ‘That’s not a prediction, that’s a spoiler.’ And you see Brock Lesnar’s advocate sitting with Roman Reigns after all these years, and I just hit Roman’s tagline of ‘Believe that,’ and off the air.

So for five seconds you see us together. Did I just see that? You’re rubbing your eyes, and you can’t believe what you saw.

And then that weekend get the title on Roman, and then the next Friday is our first appearance, truly together in front of the cameras as a unit, presenting our case as to why this act is a game-changing act, and will create history in WWE.”

Van Vliet: “It’s so easy now to look back and go, of course, this character would work. We have the benefit of hindsight. It’s been six years, of course, it works, but was there anyone at that time that didn’t think it would work?”

Heyman: “Well, you know, it’s just the little things that go into it. The first time I came up with Tribal Chief, [Vince said] ‘Really? You want to call him the Tribal Chief?’”

Van Vliet: “What did Vince want to call him?”

Heyman: “Oh, The Big Dog, Roman Reigns, with his advocate, Paul Heyman.

I said, ‘Well, I can’t be his advocate as Brock Lesnar’s advocate. We have to have something different to Roman Reigns, and Roman Reigns has to be different. You got to pull the trigger on this. This has to be as much of a seismic shift as The Deadman becoming The American Badass.

This is a whole new character. This is a whole new persona, and he could not have played this persona earlier, because he was too young to do it. He needed to weather the storms to become the Tribal Chief.

We grew up with him, almost like he was a child star, in that we saw him from his young days, fresh out of college, and he grew into this Tribal Chief.”