Roman Reigns has named the only other star he believes can carry WWE. The World Heavyweight Champion covered his own future and what happens when he steps back in a new interview with Complex. The answer was Cody Rhodes, and nobody else.
Reigns described a responsibility that comes with sitting at the top for a decade. The champion framed it as tapping into the future, using his own standing to lift whoever the company builds around next. Wrestling fans know the concept as getting the rub.
The explanation came with a caveat. Reigns said anyone stepping into the ring with him gets his best work, and the exposure raises that opponent’s value either way. A performer still has to bring something of their own for him to magnify, in his telling.
Reigns pointed to John Cena and himself as the examples of what carrying the company actually requires. Roughly a decade of delivering on demand, through exhaustion, illness, and whatever the schedule throws at a person. A billion-dollar operation does not run itself, as the champion put it.
One active star has met that standard, in his view. “There’s only been one who’s been able to carry that banner,” Reigns said. The name he gave was Cody Rhodes.
Reigns now works a part-time schedule and acknowledged he is phasing out of the position he has held since 2020. The champion did not treat that as an ending. As younger stars reach the top, he suggested, the matchups they create could pull him back into something nobody has mapped out yet.
The idea he floated was a fantasy match years down the line. A new face of the company against an older Tribal Chief, built on whatever those stars become between now and then. Reigns won the World Heavyweight Championship from CM Punk at WrestleMania 42 in April and has held it since.
Reigns is right, and the proof arrived ten days ago. Penta headlined the September 14 Raw against him in Mexico City, and Netflix logged 3.1 million global views, the best mark since the night after WrestleMania 42. WrestleVotes reported afterwards that people inside the company now consider the luchador a legitimate main event player. Sharing a ring with the champion did that in one night.
The list of names that route has produced runs long. Jey Uso went from tag wrestler to World Heavyweight Champion out of the Bloodline story. Sami Zayn holds the Undisputed WWE Championship today, and the run that turned him into a main eventer began with a folding chair and an acknowledgment. Solo Sikoa became a babyface by refusing to rejoin the group, and LA Knight is challenging for a world title next month off a feud with the same man.
The Cody line is the part people will argue about, and the math holds up anyway. Rhodes chased one story for two years, finished it at WrestleMania 40, and carried SmackDown as its top babyface across two separate Undisputed WWE Championship reigns. Merchandise, ratings, and main events all followed him through that stretch. Nobody else on the roster owns a comparable record over the same window.
None of that closes the door on anybody else. Oba Femi is two years into a rise that already includes a WrestleMania win over Brock Lesnar, with a Riyadh main event against Reigns reportedly in the plans. A decade is the champion’s own measuring stick, and the NXT graduate has not had one yet. Asked who has carried the company to this point, though, Reigns gave the only answer the record supports.
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