Former WWE Superstar Alex Riley Responds To Roman Reigns’ Promo About John Cena On WWE ‘Raw’
During last night’s episode of WWE Raw, superstar Roman Reigns cut another promo about John Cena ahead of their impending No Mercy 2017 match. This time around, Cena wasn’t in the ring or even on the show despite Reigns making mention of his name quite a bit. Reigns also mentioned another superstar in his promo, suggesting that Cena had buried him while he was part of the roster. That superstar has since responded to Reigns’ name-dropping him and is suggesting that maybe the powers that be at the WWE understand why his situation went south as a professional wrestler on their roster.
As Ringside News indicated in a report on Tuesday, during Reigns’ speech he talked about how people tried to compare him to acting just like John Cena. Reigns said, “If I did I wouldn’t have a career here.” The fans started jeering and booing after that to which Reigns paused and smirked before saying, “You don’t believe me? Ask Alex Riley about that.” Alex Riley, real name Kevin Kiley Jr., has been known to give shoot interviews, as have others, suggesting that Cena caused some backstage issues which altered his career path. He would go on to tweet a simple reply to Reigns’ promo in the early hours of Tuesday morning after Raw had gone off television for the night.
Riley posted a message on Twitter saying, “You’re starting to C” and then had WWE tagged and directly tweeted with the remark.
Reigns hit other big points during his talk as seen in the video below. He mentioned during his promo that he isn’t like John Cena and doesn’t need to do all the talking like Cena does because his actions speak for him. Reigns also no, ed “John Cena is the biggest hypocrite to ever step in a WWE ring” before having a video shown of Cena talking about “The Rock” back in 2012 before their big WrestleMania match. Basically, Cena was suggesting The Rock was more about Hollywood than the wrestling ring, whereas Cena “always shows up.” After the clip, Reigns played up the idea of bringing Cena out there to get the crowd riled up and then said the crowd wasn’t “loud enough because John’s not here.” He ended by telling movie star Cena he’d see him in the ring on Sunday.
As far as Alex Riley goes, ironically he came to the main roster as movie star The Miz’s sidekick after stints in FCW and NXT. That would end up with Riley helping Miz in matches and carrying around the Money in the Bank briefcase that Miz eventually won before Miz cashed in for a championship run. At WrestleMania XXVII, Riley was a ringside part of the main event match where The Miz defeated Cena to retain the championship.
Riley would ultimately find himself moved to the SmackDown brand, but would still accompany The Miz to matches on Raw. The two ended up in a bit of a feud and Riley even teamed with John Cena in a Raw match against Miz and R-Truth. He’d eventually suffer the fate of many other misused talents and start to become less visible on the main roster before returning to NXT.
During his return to NXT, had a decent run in the ring, but WWE seemed unsure of how to work him into their plans and pushed him into a commentary role on the show. He did get to participate in several more matches for NXT in 2015 and also WrestleMania 31 as part of the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. However, Riley found himself released in May of 2016.
It’s still unknown what the full situation was behind John Cena and Alex Riley, but the former WWE superstar seems to suggest Cena was a big part of it. WWE’s creative staff certainly made a point to work that into Roman Reigns’ in-ring promo last night, suggesting that Cena really did bury Riley as a talent due to some sort of issue. Once Alex Riley releases that anticipated autobiography about his story in professional wrestling and life, fans will finally see his truth of the matter.
Roman Reigns takes on John Cena at Sunday’s WWE No Mercy 2017 pay-per-view. Any guesses who Alex Riley might be rooting for to win that match?
[Featured Image by WWE]
