Entering WrestleMania Sunday, Roman Reigns holds the fourth-longest world championship reign in company history at 1,316 days. He defends his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship against “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes. Fans are split on who will walk out of WrestleMania as champion, but no matter how WrestleMania 40 goes, should Roman Reigns be considered as one of the all-time greats?

In sports, it is hard to breakthrough that glass ceiling and high expectations set before you. In the NBA, Michael Jordan is on such a high pedestal, it’s so hard for someone the likes of LeBron James to convince basketball fans and analysts he could be better than Jordan. In the NHL, nobody can be better than Wayne Gretzky. In the NFL, nobody can be better than Jerry Rice at wide receiver or Lawrence Taylor on defense. Fans are stubborn when it comes to surpassing the legends they grew up watching.

The same goes for professional wrestling. People who grew up on Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ric Flair, and The Undertaker, it’s hard for fans to grasp someone would surpass them on the proverbial “Mt. Rushmore” or as the “Greatest of All-Time.” Once minds are made up, opinions are nearly impossible to change.

Once upon a time, nobody would see the star power of a Hulk Hogan. Once upon a time, Stone Cold defined the greatest era in pro wrestling. Once upon a time, Ric Flair drew houses and won 60-minute broadways. Once upon a time, The Undertaker defined WWE’s Super Bowl with a long-lasting undefeated streak. These are just four of the legacies put in their own individual cases that were considered untouchable.

Enter Roman Reigns. The younger cousin of the biggest box office attraction, and one of the most popular actors in the world, The Rock. Reigns, coming from the famous Anoa’i family, was destined for greatness in the ring after his football career was cut short due to leukemia. He had the look, the genealogy, and the “it” factor WWE creative looks for in the next big superstar. As John Cena was nearing the end of his full-time run in WWE with his transition to Hollywood, Reigns was around to naturally step into that role.

WWE would shove Roman Reigns down the throat of their consumers. As a result of trying to make him the next John Cena, he wasn’t comfortable in his own skin or his role on-screen. A second diagnosis with leukemia back in 2018, followed by a hiatus at the height of COVID in 2020, forced Reigns to evolve into the character we see today. This new character has him in consideration for the Greatest of All-Time, and certainly a place on Mt. Rushmore.

Roman’s career can be split into three separate categories; The Shield, The Big Dog, and the Tribal Chief.

During his time in The Shield, Roman Reigns could hide his weaknesses and exalt his strengths. Roman’s positive attributes included his presence, his powerhouse technique, and his agility. Everyone watching Roman back in his time with Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose knew Reigns would be a big deal.

After The Shield split up less than two years as a unit, Roman Reigns went into a solo career and some of his weaknesses were brought to light. Roman was not comfortable on the microphone and it showed. There’s an infamous promo of John Cena returning to wrestle Roman because Reigns “couldn’t do his job.” However, “The Big Dog” was a mainstay in the main event scene as a babyface.

After COVID hit in 2020, Roman Reigns left potentially another WrestleMania main event on the table, as he was scheduled to challenge Bill Goldberg at WrestleMania 36 for the WWE Universal Championship. Reigns revealed he contemplated retirement due to the pandemic and we would’ve never gotten his next run. He returned in August as he staked claim as the Tribal Chief, turning heel for the first time in his career, and the rest is history.

Reigns would win the WWE Universal Championship a week after his return and Reigns aligned himself with one of the greatest managers in history, Paul Heyman (who gets inducted this Friday night into WWE’s Hall of Fame). That was August 30, 2020. He’s held championship ever since, unified the Universal Championship with the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 38, and has dominated the industry for nearly four years in this run.

And for anyone who pushes the pandemic era to the back of their minds, nobody knew how to navigate that time. WWE talent are sports entertainers who feed off a crowd. Watching Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown was simply different, and oftentimes uncomfortable back then. Instead of using this as an excuse, Roman Reigns came back and created an interesting story for fans to follow. The Bloodline story is an escape from the harsh reality we were experiencing at the time as a world.

To put Roman’s accolades against the rest, Roman Reigns is about to main event Night 1 and Night 2 of WrestleMania this year, the first WWE superstar to ever main event both nights of WrestleMania since that trend began in 2020. This will be twice he has main evented four consecutive WrestleMania shows (31-34, 37-40). To put it into a sports perspective, this is going to the Super Bowl or NBA Finals four straight years… twice.

In those events, he has defeated Triple H, The Undertaker, Edge, Daniel Bryan, Brock Lesnar, and Cody Rhodes.

Reigns is a 6-time world champion, along with holding every championship made available to him at least once. This is what WWE calls a “grand slam champion,” the ninth ever in its current format. As I mentioned, his current reign of over 1,300 days is unheard of. Nobody holds a championship that long in the modern era and nobody is at the top of the card for that long either.

To add to his accomplishments and his character evolution, Reigns has elevated his family in the most compelling long-term storyline in wrestling history. He elevated his twin cousins The Usos from an ordinary tag team getting ten minute matches, to being a prominent piece to the weekly shows and competing in the main events of big shows. The Usos main evented Night 1 of WrestleMania last year, the first time the WWE Tag Team Championships were featured in a WrestleMania main event. The Usos now battle each other in a one-on-one contest this weekend at WrestleMania.

Solo Sikoa, the younger brother of The Usos, was skyrocketed to the main card from NXT because of Roman Reigns. Since Reigns introduced Sikoa at Clash at the Castle in September 2022, Solo Sikoa has worked with the likes of Cody Rhodes and most notably defeated John Cena at Crown Jewel.

Sami Zayn, who isn’t even blood, was involved with the Bloodline for months as an “Honorary Uce.” With the emotional tug of the story, Zayn went from being stuck in the mid-card to being apart of the main event picture at last year’s Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber in Montreal, and WrestleMania. This doesn’t happen without the Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns.

WWE also doesn’t have The Rock return without Roman Reigns being at the height of his career. The Rock brings a new audience to the product, especially with Pat McAfee covering it by interviewing The Rock about WWE on ESPN. Now, we have The Rock as apart of the weekly build to this weekend’s WrestleMania and in the Night 1 main event with the “Head of the Table.”

WWE continues to rewrite the record books with the most views in the company’s social media history and is selling out arenas while Reigns is the champion. Every time Paul “Triple H” Levesque sits down at a press conference, he’s announcing a new record WWE broke. This isn’t at an easy time, either. The Bloodline is dominating on-screen, meanwhile, WWE is sold to TKO and there’s a dark cloud hovering with Vince McMahon’s allegations and his murky exit from the WWE. So for the company to thrive in the midst of this shows how dominant and vital Roman Reigns has been to this company’s stability.

In reality, I could write a lot more about the impact Roman Reigns has had on the industry while being the face of WWE, especially in the most challenging times of the pandemic and the Endeavor sale. We touched on Roman’s legacy on Outta Pocket with Michael Davis this week on Tobacco Road Sports Radio, and if he has a place on Mt. Rushmore. But ultimately, that is your decision as a fan. It’s a subjective question fans debate about someone’s legacy.

For me, Roman Reigns deserves to be in the conversation. We’ll likely never see another Roman Reigns. If you were expecting the next John Cena, you didn’t get him. And thankfully, we didn’t get the next John Cena. We got the one and only Roman Reigns, the Tribal Chief, the Head of the Table, and we’ll reminisce about his legendary run for years to come.

Thank you, Roman Reigns. We acknowledge you.