Paul Heyman discusses Roman Reigns’ catchphrase.
Appearing on Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin, Heyman discussed a number of topics including the past three years which he has spent as Reigns’ Wise Man.
“I always looked at him and thought, not in these words, but, ‘That’s the Tribal Chief.’ It’s not just a play on the Polynesian Islands or the Samoan Tribal Chief. I know a lot of people suspected at first that was me paying homage to Peter Maivia, you know, the Paramount High Samoan Chief. It’s not. The idea was the tribe is the WWE Universe and he’s The Tribal Chief of the entire WWE. Not of the Samoan Islands. He’s the Tribal Chief of the WWE Universe and he operates out of the Island of Relevancy. It’s funny because we almost didn’t go with Island of Relevancy. We almost went with Championship Island. Somehow, we realized, well, that limits a decade’s long progression of the character, because if it’s not about the championship then why are we on Championship Island,”
Paul Heyman
Heyman would continue, explaining how he came to be named the Wise Man.
“Well, I came up with Tribal Chief and Roman came up with Special Council for me, and he tagged me The Wise Man,” Heyman said.. “When he called me The Wise Man, I was just like, ‘Wow, he just threw me something, man. He just bestowed upon me a sacred name in WWE/WWF/WWWF culture.’ In the McMahon’s family dynasty, that’s a sacred name. Bobby Heenan was not the Wise Man. Jimmy Hart was not the Wise Man. Slick was not the Wise Man. None of these people ever got bestowed upon them the title of Wise Man. So I just thought, like, ‘Wow, he just made his Special Council a Wise Man. I will remember this promo for the rest of my life.’ Then everyone started to come up and go, ‘Wise Man, could I ask you something. It just stuck. Even Vince would say, ‘Wise Man, may have a moment.’ I’m like, ‘Vince’s calling me Wise Man? What have you done?'”
Paul Heyman
Heyman finally stated that Roman stumbles across things, including his Acknowledge Me catchphrase.
“That’s just Roman. He stumbles on to things. The ‘Acknowledged Me’ was a stumble. We were trying to figure out, you know, what does he really want? His first story line as champion was with his cousin, Jey… Roman had said, ‘Well, you know what I really want from Jey? I don’t want his love, I have that. I don’t want his admiration. I don’t even want his obedience. I’ll take that from him. You know what I need? I’m The Head of the Table. I am The Tribal Chief. I need him to acknowledge me. The moment he said it, we all got chills because we knew this is bigger than this moment. This is the declarative statement, this is the definition of the character. What does the character want? What does The Tribal Chief need? What does The Head of the Table seek? Acknowledgement. It’s emotional,”
“The reactions are always incredible because it empowers the audience to be real. It empowers the audience to be themselves. It empowers the audience to be their own Tribal Chief and say or do anything they want and the most powerful performer in the industry in decades, is asking you, pleading with you, please do this,”
Paul Heyman
Elsewhere during the interview, Heyman shared his reaction to seeing how big Brock Lesnar was on the RAW after WrestleMania back in April.
H/T to Fightful
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