WWE News: Edge & Christian Weigh In On Roman Reigns’ Wellness Policy Violation
Roman Reigns has served his 30-day suspension for violating the WWE Wellness Policy and is eligible to resume working for the company. As noted, he was kept in the main event against Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins for the WWE Championship at Battleground despite not appearing on any programming since the suspension went into effect on June 21.
Reigns was drafted by Stephanie McMahon and Mick Foley to the RAW brand in the second round with the sixth overall selection. Interestingly, he went ahead of the likes of John Cena, Bray Wyatt, and Brock Lesnar, among others. The Beast has been dealing with his own drug test issues, however, hence the reason he slipped to the eighth pick instead of going first overall like originally planned.
Once Reigns’ suspension was announced, the WWE Universe had nearly a week to speculate how the company was going to handle his absence considering the high-profile program he was going to be involved in. Seth Rollins was given the honors to end the speculation on the first segment on the following week’s RAW. He, like many others outside of the WWE, called Reigns an embarrassment. An embarrassment to Rollins, the WWE, and, of course, himself.
In retrospect, that promo, along with the “Rollins Report” segment, served the purpose of keeping Reigns relevant while pushing the storyline without his actual presence. You would hope that WWE officials are prepared for the reaction he’ll get when he finally shows back up at Battleground on Sunday.
Fans may continue to show disdain for Reigns while his fellow superstars may have some resentment considering he didn’t lose his spot after a very public violation. Former WWE superstars Edge and Christian were guests of 120 Sports, where they were asked about the Reigns suspension. Christian didn’t feel like rocking the boat, as transcribed by SEC Scoops.
“You don’t like to see stuff like that happen to anybody. Especially when they work hard. I don’t know what the circumstances are. I don’t want to comment on it in that respect. It’s a tough thing. You don’t want to see anybody in that situation. Like I said, it’s kind of a tough thing to put your finger on and you hope that it doesn’t affect him going forward. You hope that he can continue where he left off.”
Whether fans would agree with Christian’s contention that he hopes he “can continue where he left off” is debatable. At this point, the general consensus is that fans wouldn’t mind if Reigns stays in the spotlight, but they’d prefer he turn heel. Edge would go on to piggyback on what his former tag team partner said.
“He’ll learn from it… we don’t know all of the circumstances surrounding it and probably never will. All you can do is throw guesses at it so, why bother? To me it’s like, ‘He’s a good kid. He’ll learn from it. He’ll own up to it and probably won’t make the same mistake again.’ I think that’s how you have to kind of deal with it. You see a guy like John Cena and there’s a reason he’s the face of the company. I think that’s the kind of model that the WWE is going to put out as their franchise player. That’s what you have to look to for guidelines to kind of aspire to.”
The interview was conducted last weekend, and since then, news has come out claiming that Reigns tested positive for Adderall. However, it’s still highly unlikely Edge would ruffle many feathers if more information was available to him. Nevertheless, the entire wrestling community will soon find out how Reigns will be handled in his return to WWE this Sunday.
[Image via WWE]
