{"id":152421,"date":"2026-02-02T23:09:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=152421"},"modified":"2026-02-02T23:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:30:22","slug":"roman-reigns-chooses-cm-punk-3-reasons-why-wwe-made-the-right-choice-for-wrestlemania-42","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2026\/02\/02\/roman-reigns-chooses-cm-punk-3-reasons-why-wwe-made-the-right-choice-for-wrestlemania-42\/","title":{"rendered":"Roman Reigns Chooses CM Punk: 3 Reasons Why WWE Made the Right Choice for WrestleMania 42"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In an absolutely heated final segment on Monday Night Raw, Roman Reigns has made his choice, and it&#8217;s set to provide fans a WrestleMania 42 main event over a decade in the making as the OTC takes on the WWE World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk for just their second-ever singles match.<\/p>\n<p>Winning the Royal Rumble grants you immense power, and Roman Reigns knows that, after all, this year marked his second victory. It&#8217;s been over a decade since Reigns&#8217; last Rumble win, which was one no one will forget, given the situation at the time. Reigns was pushed too far, too fast in 2015, but things are completely different now. His win in 2026 wasn&#8217;t met with a chorus of boos but rather deafening cheers as fans are ready for the OTC to reclaim his throne. It was something Reigns himself acknowledged on Raw Monday night. Returning to Philly for the first Raw after Royal Rumble, Reigns remarked on it being the perfect location for him to make his choice, given the history he has in the city, both good and bad.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_133696\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-133696\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2025\/04\/20250414_RAW_Netflix_Match_PunkHeymanRomanSeth_16x9_tonight-4a80ca54b8cd19f5176599dd8f00f4b3-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"WWE Raw graphic featuring Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, and CM Punk\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"wp-image-133696 size-large\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2025\/04\/20250414_RAW_Netflix_Match_PunkHeymanRomanSeth_16x9_tonight-4a80ca54b8cd19f5176599dd8f00f4b3-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2025\/04\/20250414_RAW_Netflix_Match_PunkHeymanRomanSeth_16x9_tonight-4a80ca54b8cd19f5176599dd8f00f4b3-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2025\/04\/20250414_RAW_Netflix_Match_PunkHeymanRomanSeth_16x9_tonight-4a80ca54b8cd19f5176599dd8f00f4b3-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2025\/04\/20250414_RAW_Netflix_Match_PunkHeymanRomanSeth_16x9_tonight-4a80ca54b8cd19f5176599dd8f00f4b3-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2025\/04\/20250414_RAW_Netflix_Match_PunkHeymanRomanSeth_16x9_tonight-4a80ca54b8cd19f5176599dd8f00f4b3.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-133696\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The last time Roman Reigns and CM Punk wrestled against each other was at WrestleMania 41. Now, it will just be Reigns and Punk going head-to-head for the first time in 12 years. Credit: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>And much like things were different in 2015 when Reigns first won the Rumble, so they were in 2014 on the night the Big Dog wrestled the Best in the World one-on-one for what to this point has been their only singles match. That is, until this year&#8217;s WrestleMania, as Reigns has made his choice and he&#8217;s choosing to fight a man with whom he shares over a decade of history. He&#8217;s choosing to fight to reclaim the World Heavyweight Championship, which would be his first title win in what feels like an unfathomable two years. And this time, he&#8217;s choosing to do so without the <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bRf9o5mAT_M\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">interference of Seth Rollins<\/a>, which, of course, led to the shocking WrestleMania twist last year that saw Paul Heyman abandon his Tribal Chief. Perhaps most importantly, Reigns is choosing to fight a man whom he legitimately hates, and that raw emotion is only going to bring out the best in both of these guys, much like it did when Punk and Rollins had their feud.<\/p>\n<p>As enticing as Roman Reigns vs Drew McIntyre also would have been, Reigns vs Punk is the right story to tell, given all of the history and animosity that exists between the two. Here are three reasons why WWE made the right choice for WrestleMania 42.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Roman Reigns chooses to challenge CM Punk at WrestleMania: Raw highlights, Feb. 2, 2026\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9GdHfRd1HU8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2>Reigns to Punk: &#8220;I hate you and I&#8217;ve always hated you&#8221;<\/h2>\n<p>For two guys who have only wrestled one singles match in their careers, it seems hard to believe the amount of history that exists between them. But as fans know, Punk and Reigns&#8217; story goes back nearly 15 years.<\/p>\n<p>In 2012, three young and up-and-coming NXT stars barreled through the main roster, making a mark in short order. It was later revealed that these three were hired guns, mercenaries whose job was to &#8216;shield&#8217; the world champion, CM Punk. At Punk&#8217;s behest, the Shield ran roughshod in their first year and beyond, further altering the course of pro wrestling&#8217;s last decade. And normally, one would say the rest is history, but history has a way of repeating itself. And at WrestleMania 42, it seems like history will do just that as Roman Reigns has made his choice, eying a rematch with Punk, 12 years in the making.<\/p>\n<h3>Punk Didn&#8217;t Want Reigns in the Shield<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"FULL MATCH: CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns: Raw, Jan. 6, 2014\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/82e3oExm5v8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s well-known at this point that Punk didn&#8217;t want Reigns in the Shield. It wasn&#8217;t necessarily that he disliked Reigns, but he wanted his guy, Chris Hero, and not WWE&#8217;s guy, which is what Reigns was seen as. A member of the famed Anoai&#8217;i family tree, WWE had a vested interest in seeing Reigns, then known as Leakee, become a star. And there wouldn&#8217;t have been a better way to ensure that than by pairing Reigns with Punk, the fan-favorite world champion. Punk had other ideas, though, and he said as much after the fact in his infamous revealing tell-all on Colt Cabana&#8217;s Art of Wrestling podcast.<\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;They wanted Roman Reigns. They came to me, and they were like, &#8216;What about Leakee?'&#8221; Punk recalled. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t&#8230; it wasn&#8217;t my hill to die on. I said &#8216;sure&#8217; because it made sense to me. Oh, they want their guy in; he&#8217;s the pretty guy, but that&#8217;s good because this guy can learn from working under me.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Punk knew his role was to be a mentor to the three Shield members, but soon, the group grew tired of their leader, and he outgrew his need for them as well. By 2013, Punk sought to destroy his own creation, and that&#8217;s what brought him and Reigns into each other&#8217;s direct orbit. The two faced off in January 2014 on a special old-school episode of Raw. Reigns was victorious thanks to a little assist from Dean Ambrose, after which the Shield proceeded to beat down their former leader until Jake Roberts and the New Age Outlaws (Billy Gunn and Road Dogg) showed up to even the odds, because old-school Raw.<\/p>\n<h3>&#8220;Make Roman look strong&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>The two would share a ring a few more times, mostly in tag action and house show three-on-one handicap matches, before CM Punk left WWE later that year. When he did so, he bared all, eviscerating the company and people in it. One such individual was Roman Reigns. Punk recounted how he was told over and over again for their three-on-one handicap match at TLC that he needed to &#8220;make Roman look strong.&#8221; Those four words spawned memes and came to epitomize the early singles run for Reigns, who was not the Shield member fans wanted to see on top.<\/p>\n<p>Reigns was mocked as &#8220;Make Roman look strong&#8221; became a calling card, one that Reigns has since said, made his job a lot harder. Needless to say, Reigns has made it abundantly clear he does not like Punk but he&#8217;s a business man and he was more than willing to make towns and draw dimes with the man knowing the high-profile nature of such a match.<\/p>\n<p>And it appeared at times shortly after Punk&#8217;s return, that match would come. In a way, it did, just not in the way anybody expected.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2>War Games 2024 and 2025<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Men\u2019s WarGames Match Highlights | 2025 WWE Survivor Series\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I7E54mfodks?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Roman Reigns engaged in a heated promo battle with CM Punk to end Monday Night Raw, in which he addressed their shared history. Among it, their two times teaming up for War Games. As Reigns reminded Punk, he was consulted when Punk wanted back in the company. Reigns gave the okay and what did Punk do? He spit in his face by trying to turn his cousins against him and steal his Wiseman. He shook Reigns&#8217; hand at War Games even and tried to make the OTC forget all about the man who tried to destroy his career before it really truly began.<\/p>\n<p>War Games 2024 marked the first time Punk and Reigns shared a ring in a decade. Punk stepped up as the surprise final member of Reigns&#8217; team in his Bloodline civil war with the Solo Sikoa-led group. In doing so, Punk was entitled to a favor, one that he cashed in for WrestleMania when he asked Paul Heyman to be his cornerman for WrestleMania 41.<\/p>\n<p>Despite their animosity, Punk and Reigns shared a team for War Games yet again in 2025 as this time it was Reigns who stepped in to help Cody Rhodes&#8217; team against their mutual enemy in the Vision. Reigns didn&#8217;t try to hide his disdain for either Rhodes or Punk as he implored the two to get their house in order and figure out whose team it really was. In the end, the team was too combustible as the Vision emerged victorious thanks to the masked assailant later revealed to be Austin Theory. Reigns helped Punk to his feet and shared a fist bump with his rival while telling Rhodes he would never team with him again. It seemed at the time, Reigns hated Rhodes more than Punk but as Reigns recalled on Monday, he felt Punk tried to brainwash him in that moment. It almost worked Reigns noted, but ultimately it didn&#8217;t as his hatred for Punk was too strong.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2>The Seth Rollins Factor<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"FULL MATCH: Roman Reigns vs. Seth &quot;Freakin&quot; Rollins | Universal Title Match: Royal Rumble 2022\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9eCExd5GPjs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Roman Reigns and CM Punk need to face each other because of the lingering history but the reality is, this showdown is just the appetizer for the main course. In 2025, we got a taste of that when Seth Rollins, CM Punk, and Roman Reigns battled in the main event of WrestleMania 41. Paul Heyman entered as Punk&#8217;s cornerman, due to a favor Reigns owed him because of War Games. He left as Rollins&#8217; cornerman and the Visionary behind the Vision.<\/p>\n<p>Entering WrestleMania 42, the landscape has drastically shifted. An injury to Rollins led to the dissolution of his leadership role with the Vision. It seems likely, Rollins will return to feud with Bron Breakker at first, getting revenge on the man who took his spot. However, that feud is as much Rollins&#8217; appetizer as Punk is Reigns&#8217;. If not this year, than WrestleMania 43 in 2027 has to see Reigns and Rollins finally get a proper feud all these years later.<\/p>\n<h3>Rollins vs Reigns is Well Overdue<\/h3>\n<p>Injuries and schedules have derailed Rollins and Reigns&#8217; ultimate battle. The two have only wrestled head-to-head twice since 2019, with both matches serving as one-offs. Rollins and Reigns deserve a proper, multi-match feud, that takes part over several PLE cycles and months. These two have been extricably linked since day one, and now, nearly 15 years later, their careers are still intertwined. Rollins and Reigns have been in many matches together, and it always comes back to one thing: the night of June 2, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Rollins has been a thorn in Reigns&#8217; side, using their shared past to haunt the Tribal Chief. He&#8217;s entered the ring in tactical gear, called back to the Shield&#8217;s theme and entrance. He&#8217;s reminded Reigns of one certainty in life, &#8220;death, taxes, and Seth Rollins beats Roman Reigns.&#8221; In large part, that has held true, as Rollins has won his last two non-tag team matches involving Reigns, including WrestleMania 41 and the Royal Rumble in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>There may not be a feud in WWE that needs to happen more than Roman Reigns vs Seth Rollins. There is way too much history there and if Reigns defeats Punk at WrestleMania 42, there will be a title there as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Header photo \u2013 WWE \u2013<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on Roman Reigns, CM Punk, Seth Rollins, WrestleMania 42,\u00a0and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>You can check out WWE programming on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.netflix.com\/title\/81788927\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Netflix<\/a> (Raw, WWE archives, WWE Unreal, and other specials), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usanetwork.com\/wwe-friday-night-smackdown\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">USA Network<\/a>\u00a0(SmackDown),\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cwtv.com\/shows\/wwe-nxt\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The CW<\/a> (NXT), <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wwe\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ESPN <\/a>(WWE PLEs), <\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/tubitv.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tubi<\/a>\u00a0(WWE Evolve),\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aetv.com\/wwe\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A&amp;E<\/a>\u00a0(WWE Superstar Sunday \u2013 Rivals, WWE LFG, and Greatest Moments) and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a> (Saturday Night&#8217;s Main Event). Follow WWE on social media to relive top moments and matches on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/wwe\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an absolutely heated final segment on Monday Night Raw, Roman Reigns has made his choice, and it&#8217;s set to provide fans a WrestleMania 42 main event over a decade in the making as the OTC takes on the WWE World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk for just their second-ever singles match. Winning the Royal Rumble [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2418,"featured_media":139000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12,2192,25,4,3],"tags":[140,256,77,76,1555,8907,9192,7214,8906],"class_list":["post-152421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-wrestling","category-raw","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-cm-punk","tag-paul-heyman","tag-roman-reigns","tag-seth-rollins","tag-war-games","tag-wrestlemania-41","tag-wrestlemania-42","tag-wwe-royal-rumble","tag-wwe-wrestlemania"],"modified_by":"Marilee Gallagher, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152421"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152486,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152421\/revisions\/152486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}