Roman Reigns On Why He Thinks WWE SummerSlam Is On A Saturday

WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns was recently on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast with Jimmy Traina ahead of his SummerSlam main event match against John Cena. SummerSlam will be held in Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, NV this Saturday night. Reigns commented on a big WWE show being held on a Saturday as opposed to the company's traditional Sunday night PPVs.

"As someone who has been in this process for a while, since we've come back to live crowds, we work on Saturdays pretty much every single week, and I've done it for years," Reigns noted. "From a performance standpoint, it doesn't change anything for me. I think it was just more of a strategical thing, the location in Vegas, and just how travel is, the percentages of how Vegas is populated with tourists. When it comes down to it, most people are trying to get out of their Sunday because they're going back to their work week on Monday. It made great sense, obviously, to do it Saturday. The Vegas numbers in general are going to be higher."

At the end of Money in the Bank, Cena made his return to WWE with a huge pop from the live crowd. Reigns discussed if it's better for WWE stars to take some time off in order to get those big reactions from the fans when they make their return.

"I think separation can enhance the affection, even in relationships" Reigns stated. "It's a humanly psychological thing. When you're away from your significant other, you miss them, and when you see them, usually it's a good thing. There's a lot of passion, and admiration and affirmation that goes on once you reconnect. You couple that with great success in different genres of entertainment, with his movies and Suicide Squad and Peacemaker and all the other projects that he's got going on, and I think that's a recipe for success."

Reigns then talked about his upcoming match with Cena. He explained why this spot is an ideal one for him.

"I think it's a great position to be in," Reigns said. "I just watched The Suicide Squad. I thought it was really good. No offense to the first one but way better than that first one. They did a really good job of, sometimes when you see these characters like Dwayne, or Dave or even John, you can't help but to think of the WWE superstar John Cena, or Dave Batista or The Rock, but I thought they did a really good job of casting him into a position, in a role to where it was refreshing to see him.

"Obviously, he's coming with some really great success, but I think it's a really good position to be in, especially for someone like myself, who's been doing, in my opinion, some of the best work of my career. And you couple that with a perfect storm, like a big movie star coming back, thinking things are going to be the same, thinking he's still got that step left. The reality is, we're going to really expose that and put it on blast in Vegas, and what better way to do it than in the main event at SummerSlam? What better way to do it than in front of 50, 60, 70,000 plus fans in Allegiant Stadium, so it's gonna be a great outing for myself."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Sports Illustrated Media Podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.