Roman Reigns says he’s still feeling the effects of COVID

Roman Reigns was scheduled to face Brock Lesnar at Day 1, but plans changed. The day of the show (Jan. 1, 2022), WWE announced the Universal champion had COVID.

It’s worked out pretty well, storyline-wise. Lesnar shifted into the multi-man WWE title match, won it, and we’ll finally getting to see him face Bobby Lashley at Royal Rumble this weekend. Meanwhile, former Shield bros will clash in Reigns’ first singles match since being cleared.

As he gets ready to face Seth Rollins on Sat., Jan. 29, the Tribal Chief talked to SI about his COVID experience. While it certainly wasn’t as bad as it might have been — especially for someone who lives with cancer — it doesn’t sound fun:

“For me, obviously in comparison to some of the worst scenarios that are out there and that we’ve seen through the pandemic, it wasn’t bad. For me, it was mainly a pretty good sinus infection, a bronchitis cough, a lot of chest tightness. I still feel that actually. When I’m doing my conditioning because we don’t wrestle quite as much and we’re doing a lot of six-man [tag team matches], I don’t have singles matches as much as I used to, so I have to continue to really push the conditioning on my own and I’ve noticed in the past couple of weeks that when I really blow myself up on the bike or running, or whatever I’m doing, I can feel that tightness and a little bit of wheezing. So it’s definitely something serious. As someone who is vaccinated and boosted, it still got to me and I still felt the effects. While they weren’t as severe as they can be for some, it did hang around and linger for a while.”

Thankfully, Roman’s on the road to recovery, and feels well enough to go this weekend.