The intensity between Roman Reigns and CM Punk isn’t just storyline, it’s something that’s being felt far beyond the cameras.
WWE Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque recently sat down with Joe Tessitore ahead of WrestleMania, where he shed light on the very real tension surrounding Reigns and Punk as their high-stakes showdown approaches.
According to Levesque, this rivalry has blurred the lines between performance and reality in a way that’s rare even in WWE.
“This is one where you break down the sport and entertainment aspect of what we do,” he said. “Very rarely does it crisscross into both. This one crisscrosses into both. Obviously, there’s a tension when they’re in the ring with each other. There is a palpable, you can cut it with a knife, feeling of intensity. That intensity does not stop backstage.”
That tension doesn’t ease up once the cameras stop rolling.
In fact, Levesque emphasized that simply having Roman Reigns and CM Punk in the same backstage area creates an unpredictable and volatile environment.
Levesque continued, “So, when they have to be in the vicinity of each other in backstage environments, it is on epic levels of tension. You know, where at any point in time, you will feel like this will go incredibly unprofessionally at any moment. You are just sitting there. You can smell the gas in the air and there are sparks everywhere, and you’re trying to get through it and get it in the ring at WrestleMania before it blows up, before the fire ignites and it goes really, really badly. When you talk about Unreal, this one is real, and real in a way that I don’t think many people can fathom the amount of — you’ll beep this but the moment of ‘f*ck you’ between the two of them is f*cking palpable.”
Levesque also spoke about WWE not having backup plans in place if something happened to any of the four men involved in the two main events scheduled for WrestleMania 42.
“If you lose your quarterback, if you lose your first-string offensive lineman, if you lose your star center or star guard in the NBA, you have a second-string guy to back him up, and you hope that those second-string guys are pretty good,” he said. “There is no backup Cody Rhodes. There is no backup Randy Orton, there’s no backup Roman Reigns, there’s no backup CM Punk.”
Roman Reigns challenges CM Punk for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 42, which takes place on April 18 and April 19 from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, NV.
