Roman Reigns Names WrestleMania Loss as His Surprise Favorite

It's Christmas in April for pro wrestling fans all around the world as WrestleMania 42 inside Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas inches closer.

Roman Reigns is on a collision course with WWE World Heavyweight champion CM Punk that's more than a decade in the making, dating back to Roman's loose involvement with Punk during the birth of The SHIELD faction 13 years ago.

Since then, Reigns has reached the pinnacle of WrestleMania history multiple times. This weekend will be his 11th time closing a night at the "Show of Shows," and five of those times he has left as world champion.

The average wrestling fan would assume one of those great victories from Reigns' career is his favorite of all time. Most fans might think outside the box and guess his first WrestleMania match at WrestleMania 30, or even his loss to Cody Rhodes, due to its impact on wrestling.

Roman Reigns sat with Stephen A. Smith on ESPN's First Take this morning to declare which moment is actually his favorite.

It's a WrestleMania 31 moment

Roman Reigns even had the privilege of closing WrestleMania 33 with The Undertaker, who suffered just his second loss at WrestleMania against Reigns at WrestleMania 33. Still, it's his match against Brock Lesnar for the WWE World Heavyweight championship at WrestleMania 31 that wears the crown for Reigns.

"It didn't end the way I wanted it to, but from that moment on, that showed me the importance of the main event of WrestleMania. My life changed. It was completely different after that night. The whole world looked at me different. I was a legitimate superstar at that point. At that point, I got the rub from Brock Lesnar. It put me in a different stratosphere and it hasn't been the same since. "
Roman Reigns on ESPN's First Take

Reigns dove deeper into using Lesnar as a stepping stone back into the main event scene after the loss. Brock Lesnar also lost the match, but he didn't eat the pin. Seth Rollins ran into the match before the bell rang and cashed in his Money in the Bank contract to make it a triple threat match. Rollins stomped Reigns after Reigns had speared Lesnar and pinned him to become the new world champion.

Reigns wouldn't win the WWE World Championship again until WWE Survivor Series of that year, when he beat Dean Ambrose in the finals of a tournament for the vacant world championship.

Roman can see himself facing Oba soon

Reigns was also asked which superstar on the WrestleMania card he could face someday in a big match.

"Oba Femi, no doubt. There's a lot of great young talent. I really like what I'm seeing from Trick Williams, Je'von Evans, Carmelo...He's [Carmelo] has been up for a little while, he's had a different route than the other guys. I really like the resiliency he's shown and he's torn it up on Smackdown for a while now. So I'm looking for big things from him too."

Despite declaring Oba Femi as the definitive answer, he didn't fail to name other rising stars on the roster. He spoke very highly of Carmelo Hayes. Oba Femi faces Brock Lesnar in the opening match of night two of WrestleMania 42, starting at 6:00 pm Eastern on ESPN.

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