John Cena Declares Roman Reigns as WWE's GOAT, Ranks The Rock at No. 2

WWE has given John Cena the greatest of all-time moniker, but the 16-time champion doesn't think of himself that way.

In an interview with Shannon Sharpe of the Club Shay Shay podcast (starts at 37:50 mark), Cena deemed Roman Reigns to be the GOAT of WWE primarily because of the financial success the company has had with him as the top guy.

"He's been in it since 2012," Cena said of Reigns. "I had to work my way up. I started on the bench, and then got onto the Saturday program and lost every match. He came in with the Shield, in a high-level spot, and never wavered, even when the fans didn't like him. He was still in the main-event spot. He's been in a main-event lens for over a decade now. And he's brought, through his clock—and you can say whatever forces helped it—but in 2012, the stock was trading at $11. WWE—or TKO stock—is now at $117. That's on his shoulders. And I know it's a team effort, nobody does it alone. ... That's some serious s--t."

Cena went on to list The Rock as the No. 2 superstar in WWE history because he "did the same thing in the '90s" for the business, but "Roman's numbers have been better than Dwayne's."

While there is some logic to Cena's case, if you're only going to list the greatest of all-time by the financial impact they had on the business, Stone Cold Steve Austin has to be No. 1 in WWE history. He was the top star during the Attitude Era and one of the biggest reasons WWE got popular enough to go public in 1999.

But Reigns is unquestionably the top star of this era in wrestling, particularly since Cena stopped working a full-time schedule in 2016. He has main-evented eight of the last 10 WrestleMania events dating back to 2015.

The Original Tribal Chief recently had the fourth-longest world title reign in WWE history at 1,316 days before he was defeated by Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 40.

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