Roman Reigns has broken his silence about Conrad Thompson repeatedly attacking him as an “industry plant” and “overrated” as a main event attraction.
Addressing the attacks during a recent interview on Club Shay Shay, Reigns said the podcaster is seemingly using his name for increased show ratings, but The OTC didn’t stop there in his response. He also dropped a line that seemed to insinuate that Thompson’s opinions are skewed due to “who he’s connected to.”
Though the WWE World Heavyweight Champion didn’t outright say it, Thompson has been linked to AEW in the past. His Starrcast fan conventions have been aligned with AEW events, and he co-hosts podcasts with AEW personalities Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone.
On top of that, Thompson is married to Ric Flair’s daughter Megan, and The Nature Boy is still under some sort of contract with AEW. However, it should be noted that Conrad has denied having any kind of official deal with AEW, instead saying his work with the promotion has simply come about from being friends with top people in the company.
But Conrad has been taking pointed shots against Reigns for a couple of months now, beginning with comments he made in August on 83 Weeks, a podcast he hosts with Eric Bischoff.
“I think Roman Reigns is probably the most overrated main eventer in WWE history,” Thompson said at the time, before further describing Reigns as an “industry plant.”
He went on to doubled-down on those comments in another episode of 83 Weeks before taking up the charge again on the September 25th episode of Something to Wrestle, which he hosts with John Bradshaw Layfield. During that show, he once again called Reigns overrated, before stating: “It’s also true that never have I ever seen a Roman Reigns T-shirt out in the wild. Not once.”
Last week, Thompson appeared on The Ariel Helwani Show and went into detail on why he feels Reigns is an “industry plant.”
“They [WWE] forced him to be on top and to always win over and over and over,” Thompson said to Helwani. “I give you the longest entrance. I let you go on last. You’re always the main event, and you always win. Well, I think that formula would work for pretty much anybody.”
During the same appearance, Conrad also said: “AEW is making wrestling for fans, and I think WWE is making wrestling for investors.”
During the October 14 episode of Club Shay Shay, host Shannon Sharpe asked Reigns if he was bothered by the repeated offensives from Conrad.
“No, because the truth is, are there a lot of people watching that guy’s show? So, you’re gonna say stuff,” Reigns replied. “You already know I’m a metric mover. They know I give views and all that stuff. So, it’s fine. It is what it is.”
The WWE star then speculated a little more about Thompson’s motivation.
“If you look at the guy’s background, you already know where his support system — You know what I mean? All you got to do is scroll a little bit, and you see who he’s a fan of and stuff like that, and who he’s connected to,” Reigns said. “But no, if they want to use my name to get views, that’s the industry right now.”
What do you think of Roman’s response about Conrad’s attacks? Let us know in the comments.
