WWE RAW Revisited: Roman Reigns Vacates Universal Championship To Battle Leukemia

On this week's edition of the Wrestling Inc. Podcast, which airs live every Monday after RAW, former WWE / TNA star Matt Morgan, Wrestling Inc. President Raj Giri, and Glenn Rubenstein reviewed last night's RAW and discussed Roman Reigns and his battle with leukemia. Below are some highlights from the podcast:

Raj: "Roman Reigns wasn't at this past weekend's live events. He was advertised. It definitely did seem odd that he wasn't there, so obviously people were thinking that he had an injury or something—leukemia, I hadn't heard that he had it before. This is the first time hearing of it. Definitely is a big shock".

Morgan: "I hate to talk from a wrestling analyst perspective here but I felt really good about the crowd doing him right because when he was talking like that I was thinking that these idiots better not boo him. People cannot be that ugly on the inside to chant 'you still suck,' or something like that, which is what I kept worrying about. To their credit, they gave him the proper send off that he deserves and I am not going to lie I teared up watching it the first time. It hit me hard, who the hell was expecting that? I don't even know the guy you know what I mean? The s–tt he has had to take as the top babyface that the company has been pushing, he was not pushing himself, the company is pushing him and doing the best that he could by biting his tongue as best as he could while being crapped on by that audience is a very tough thing to do and he did it with a lot of respect and class, and then for this to happen to him, again, I hate to talk like a wrestling analyst here but I am sure you guys were thinking of it too, but he has finally connected with them. They were actually invested and cared about him. This is a life and death situation. He put it all out in front of him. He talked real talk and talked about how he is going to beat this. What a heck of a role model. What Dad and Mom were sitting there with their kid and not going, wow, this is who I want my kid to look up to because look at what he just said. He is facing leukemia straight in the eye and saying that he is going to take his slingshot out and slay it square in its eye again. What a hell of a role model. It was a very powerful segment."

Raj: "WWE sent out a statement and basically he came out and went public with it having leukemia because he wants to raise awareness. I am with you Matt; I was tearing up during this segment. I don't know the guy; only met him a handful of times, I mean, it is so freaking sad. Where he was – I think we praise Roman Reigns all of the time for his in-ring work and how WWE doesn't do enough with his character, but you see him out there connecting and it was obviously a very different situation, but from an analyst standpoint – nevermind, I am just going to stop talking about that."

Rubenstein: "I was going to say, Matt, we are all in agreement on this. I was watching Twitter closely tonight and tonight was the night where wrestling Twitter everyone was busy where they were starting to write a tweet, and then deleting it and then editing it and then trying to write it again because I saw no snark in my timeline, or some remark about how this finally gets him over the silver lining, like a lot of restraint tonight."

Raj: "To your point Matt, a lot of these fans, remember when Shawn Michaels had to vacate the title with his knee injury during the 'I lost my smile' speech? Fans were crapping on him, chanting for Sid Vicious, I mean, they were brutal when he was like crying and giving up the title. When Roman Reigns started and how bad the fans can be to him I was worried that it was going to go the same way; classy speech. Dude is a class act. Again, I have said this before, this isn't something I am saying tonight, he is a guy where nobody that knows him says a bad thing about him."

Morgan: "He is a locker room leader, and I was thinking to myself, wow he is very young to be a locke room leader, but that is why, nobody says anything bad about him. They all respect him."

Raj: "Yeah, there is a video WWE just put out like a half an hour ago backstage after the promo and you see everyone, you can tell it hit people hard. You know, he says he is going to come back and beat it. I hope so. This isn't a joke, this is cancer and a very serious type of cancer. You know, we here at Wrestling Inc. have our thoughts and everything with him."

Rubenstein: "Yeah, nothing but respect man. Nothing but respect tonight for this. Crowd handled it well, and credit to the locker room for being able to put on a show after this."

You can watch the full episode in the video above, or listen to it in the audio player below.

The Wrestling Inc. Podcast airs every Monday immediately following RAW, Wednesdays at noon ET and post-WWE PPV Sundays immediately after the event with Matt Morgan, Glenn Rubenstein and Raj Giri. Replays are streamed on our Facebook page Facebook.com/WrestlingINC the following day at noon ET except for the Wednesday podcast, which is available the same day at 3pm ET.

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