Roman Reigns is not a nerd

Not that many of you thought he was, but former college football star & current WWE Superstar Roman Riegns set the record straight while doing a question and answer session at Wizard World in San Jose, California earlier this month (quotes courtesy of transcription found on Wrestling, Inc).

First, he's not up on the Captain Marvel mythos his cousin Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is so excited to have signed on to be a part of in the DC Comics movie universe, even committing the cardinal sin of confusing it with Shaquille O'Neil's Kazaam:

Hold on. Shazam? Like the one Shaq did?

But Black Adam and Doctor Sivana are kind of nerdy deep cuts, so we'll give him a pass there.

It becomes crystal clear during a discussion of his moveset. If you listen to Cageside Live at all, you probably know that this is my one pet peeve about The Big Dog. More than awkward fairy tale promos or mega-pushes, if he'd just stop jerking off his forearm and making an 'O-face' when prepping his signature moves, I'd sign up for a couple more decades of The Roman Empire.

Anyway, Reigns says he didn't come up with the prep ritual for the Superman Punch. And it's in revealing the name for that set-up that we begin to definitively learn that he's not a nerd:

I didn't really develop the whole theatrics, the setup for it, when I ThunderCat down on the ground [in developmental]. That's what we call it, actually, so you all know. I don't know why we call it ThunderCat, but that's what we call it

Probably because that's some real $#!+ survivors of Thundera would do when they're about to throw down with the forces of Mumm-Ra, man! Aaaand, I guess we just learned who the real nerd is here.

Plus, someone in Florida probably realized you bear more than a passing resemblance to Lion-O:

If the lack of meditating on the influences of 1980s syndicated cartoons on 21st century pro wrestling doesn't convince you that he's not a nerd, he comes clean himself about his non-nerd status in answering a question about why the Superman Punch hasn't been renamed to fit his character:

I'm not one of those nerds that names his moves. It was called a Spear before I did it, so I'm going to continue to call it a Spear. It was called a Superman Punch before I did it, so I call it a Superman Punch.

What's more, he and his brother Dean Ambrose apparently goof on the boys in the back who do rename standard moves to fit their gimmick, for example:

If you wrestle Sheamus, it's always like, "you got to look out for that Irish Curse, the Irish hand grenade, the Irish this, the Irish tailwhip, the Irish leg tie, the Irish fist punch". Like, we get it, dude! You're Irish!

In conclusion...

Roman Reigns = not a nerd.

Sean Rueter & Sheamus = nerds.

The jury is still out on Ambrose.