WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns says he’s still dealing with impact of COVID-19.
Reigns tested positive for COVID-19 at the end of December and was forced to miss the WWE Day 1 event on New Year’s Day. He spoke to Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina this week and talked about his battle with the coronavirus, noting that he still feels the effects.
“For me, obviously in comparison to some of the worst scenarios that are out there and that we’ve seen through the pandemic, it wasn’t bad,” Reigns said. “For me, it was mainly a pretty good sinus infection, a bronchitis cough, a lot of chest tightness.
“I still feel that actually. When I’m doing my conditioning because we don’t wrestle quite as much and we’re doing a lot of six-man [tag team matches], I don’t have singles matches as much as I used to, so I have to continue to really push the conditioning on my own and I’ve noticed in the past couple of weeks that when I really blow myself up on the bike or running, or whatever I’m doing, I can feel that tightness and a little bit of wheezing.”
Reigns continued and admitted the situation is serious.
“So it’s definitely something serious,” he said. “As someone who is vaccinated and boosted, it still got to me and I still felt the effects. While they weren’t as severe as they can be for some, it did hang around and linger for a while.
“It took me, obviously, I missed [the] Day One [pay-per-view on Jan. 1] and I tested positive a week before that. We were just chasing that negative test and finally a few days before SmackDown the following week, I finally got that negative test and the wife let me back in. So it was a good week that week.”
Reigns will defend his title against Seth Rollins at Saturday’s WWE Royal Rumble event, with the title on the line. SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos will be banned from ringside.
Stay tuned for more. Below is Reigns’ interview with Traina:
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