CM Punk Says Roman Reigns Is 'Far and Away the Best Guy' WWE Has

Former WWE Superstar CM Punk showered universal champion Roman Reigns with praise during a recent interview.

Appearing on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast (h/t WrestlingInc.com's Marco Rovere), Punk expressed his belief that Reigns is the cream of the crop in WWE currently:

"Maybe he needed that adversity and that backlash to finally be this guy but this is the one thing they're doing right. What can you say bad about what Roman Reigns is doing right now? He's far and away the best guy they have. When you talk about storylines, in-ring work and all that stuff, right now he's the total package. For the first time in his career, and I'm not being mean to Roman Reigns, I just feel like he's finally where they pushed him to be, it just took a minute."

While Punk has not wrestled since the 2014 Royal Rumble, he has experience working with Reigns.

The latter portion of Punk's time with WWE coincided with Reigns' early career with The Shield. Even then, it was clear that Reigns had enormous potential and was likely to be WWE's next breakout star.

That turned out to be the case, but part of the WWE fanbase was resistant to Reigns getting pushed to the top and didn't embrace him as the face of the company until recently.

Reigns' perception among fans took a turn for the better last summer when he returned from hiatus as a heel, aligned himself with Paul Heyman and quickly won the universal title. The Tribal Chief has held the championship and been the most consistently compelling performer in WWE ever since.

Punk, who hasn't been shy about criticizing WWE in the past, suggested that while WWE is getting it right with Reigns currently, it waited far too long to position him properly:

"A lot of the times the best stuff you also just got to go with the flow with it. I'll use Roman Reigns as an example because if we're talking about good stuff, if the WWE does anything good, this is the one thing they're doing right right now is Roman Reigns. His character work, his in-ring stuff, it’s all great.

"But I feel like classic WWE, they're always five years, 10 years late. This is something that they should've done originally because they tried so hard to get this guy over as a babyface and they gave him X amount of [WrestleMania] main events and said this is the guy, this is the guy and he never really had his moments until now."

Reigns always felt miscast as a face.

WWE has long had a penchant for ignoring fan reaction and clinging to its top babyfaces for too long, even in the face of fan backlash. That was the case late in Hulk Hogan's first run with the company, and it was true with John Cena as well.

Unlike with Hogan and Cena, WWE finally relented and turned Reigns heel, solidifying him as the top guy for a long time to come and making SmackDown appointment viewing for wrestling fans.

                              

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