Roman Reigns was recently interviewed on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast, where he spoke about working with Paul Heyman, as well as Heyman's impact on Reigns' WWE career.

“Huge kudos to Paul and his experience, his career, the path that he’s carved out within this industry, and also leading this industry for a portion of that time and taking it to different thresholds and extremes that had never been done before. It’s constantly trying to be emulated, but it’s just never gonna be the same, but I think that just goes to show that the experience and the level of performance that he provides and that adds just a great weapon in my arsenal to be able to have someone like Paul Heyman, which there I don’t think there’s anyone like him. He’s a one of one. There’s no doubt about it. To be able to have him in my corner to bounce ideas off of, to riff and brainstorm about the creative, whether it’s a line, whether it’s a delivery, there are a lot of times where I’m like, ‘Paul, listen to this. What do you think?” He’ll be straight up, ‘That’s not you, or, yes.’ And he does a great job.

“I can’t call it a coach because sometimes, there’s obviously different coaching methods, but Paul has this unique sixth sense of knowing when to deposit a confidence coin in a performer and just give you that one little set of affirmation, where you’re just like, ‘I am the man.’ You’re on the cusp of having that full, let’s go out there and crush this thing in front of millions of people, and he can just say one little thing to where you, without question, believe in what you’re doing. I’m sure I could do it, but I don’t think I would want to do this without him in my corner, and he’s one of very few. I had two requests. I wanted to work with Michael Hayes, that’s my guy. He’s been with me from The Shield days and even before that with my family, and a lot of the people around me have been in relation and in close contact with my family, even before my time as a performer, back when I was just a kid. They have a great history with my family, and they’ve taken to me like family, like blood and those are two guys who are critical in my process, Michael Hayes and Paul Heyman.”