Ex-WWE star raises Roman Reigns concern amid hiatus reports
Roman Reigns has been one of WWE's biggest names since debuting on the main roster in 2012. Jonathan Coachman, a former WWE commentator and interviewer, recently gave his honest opinion on The Tribal Chief's status with the company.
Reigns has worked a part-time schedule since 2022. The 39-year-old competed in six matches in 2024 and has only wrestled three times in 2025. This week, Deadline reported that the WWE star is in talks to appear in a new Street Fighter movie.
The latest episode of the Coach and Bro show featured a conversation about WWE's television viewership and ticket sales. If the company's higher-ups want fans to be invested in the on-screen product, Coachman believes the likes of Reigns must make more appearances:
"He already misses two or three months at a time, and as long as this is a narrative that everybody's struggling, tickets, TV viewership, you need your biggest star. Roman Reigns is arguably one of the three biggest stars in the company and he never works, and he just said, 'My next deal's gonna be my last, probably. Three more years is all I can do.' All he can do of what? He only shows up, what would you say, 15 times a year, maybe, on the show?" [42:53 – 43:20]
Roman Reigns' most recent match took place at WrestleMania 41 on April 19. Seth Rollins defeated The Head of the Table and CM Punk after receiving help from Paul Heyman.
Vince Russo explains the logic behind Roman Reigns' WWE schedule
In the late 1990s, Vince Russo wrote for WWE when most of the company's top stars appeared on television every week. Nowadays, in-ring talents sometimes take time off from WWE to work on non-wrestling projects.
Russo believes WWE's business model is to rotate top stars in the main-event scene rather than rely on one marquee name. As a result, he thinks company officials are happy to let wrestlers like Liv Morgan and Roman Reigns appear in movies.
"This is a formula," Russo added. "I believe this is a formula going forward, and I think they've showed it to us. They're gonna keep shuffling the top names, their bigger guys, in and out. That's what they're going to keep doing. Again, Coach, like we've said a million times, the checks have been cashed. It doesn't matter who they put on the show unless, like we said, if there are loopholes in this Netflix contract, where they have to hit certain margins, then we've got a problem. But, if there isn't, so what?" [43:24 – 44:01]
In the same episode, Coachman and Russo reacted to WWE making a last-minute show alteration due to low ticket sales.
Please credit Coach and Bro and give an H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.
