Earlier this year, right before January’s Royal Rumble pay-per-view, a storyline between Adam Pearce and Roman Reigns began brewing, and it looked like Pearce would end up challenging the WWE Universal Champion for the title. While that match never came to be, Pearce says that he actually wouldn’t have minded facing off against “The Tribal Chief.’
“Well I think it goes to show with anything that happens in WWE, there is one voice that makes things happen [Vince McMahon],” Pearce said in an interview with GIVEMESPORT’s Oliver Browning. “I was happy to be a part of it. Roman and I have certain chemistry on camera, he’s really taken to this mob boss mentality and does it so well.”
Pearce has been in the wrestling business for a long time, and he knows that you can’t fake everything. Real chemistry plays a huge part in how storylines operate, and he believes that his personal relationship with Reigns helped ensure that the storyline felt real to everyone.
“You can’t teach on-screen chemistry, I think he and I have enough of a personal relationship that the conversations always felt real,” Pearce continued. “It was naturally fun and really easy to play off him and Paul Heyman. It took on a life of its own… I was getting ready man, getting my boots polished you know, getting ready to go.”
Pearce was then asked about the possibility of being thrown into a main event match against Reigns and said that he would have loved the opportunity to do so, especially at a huge event like WWE Royal Rumble. But he made it clear that it wasn’t his goal to get into the ring, and he wouldn’t for something like that to happen.
“If you come to me tomorrow and say ‘Hey, let’s rewind to the Royal Rumble…’ If that match was actually going to happen, there is no chance I’d turn that down,” Pearce stated. “That would have been incredible. But it’s not something I ever pushed for or ever expected to happen. It’s not something I aspire to.
“Yes, I technically had my last match in 2014 but it wasn’t like I’m not in the ring multiple times a week. Teaching, coaching, staying fit. I wasn’t worried about the physical aspect of things because I was still doing it behind the scenes.”
Of course, Kevin Owens replaced Pearce in the pay-per-view match, and the rest is history. Still, many fans continue to wonder what a match between Reigns and Pearce would have looked like.
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