Roman Reigns Will Retire From WWE in Two to Three Years for a “Less Physical Form of Entertainment”

It was always in the cards for Roman Reigns to enter professional wrestling and the WWE. Soon, he’ll realize his other family’s (manifest) destiny. Reigns told Vanity Fair that his current WWE contract expires after WrestleMania 2026, and not long after that, he’s going to Hollywood.

“After I finish the contract that I’m in, we probably got another year or two max,” Reigns said. “Then it’s time to take on a less physical form of entertainment.”

Reigns (real name Joseph Anoa’i) entered the family business — his Uncle Rocky Johnson and cousins Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jimmy and Jey Uso, Solo Sikoa, Yokozuna and Rikishi were or are all breakouts stars in the WWF/E — in 2010. The next 15 years made him an all-time great, but the career brought with it a ton of bumps. The human body, even one billed at 6’3″ and 265 pounds of muscle, can only tolerate so much.

Soon, Anoa’i will following Uncle Dwayne into the film and TV industry; they already did one film together.

“He’s a physical specimen,” David Leitch, the director of Hobbs & Shaw (2019), said of Anoa’i. “The camera loves him, the audience loves him, and the only thing standing in his way is his own ambition.”

Anoa’i played “Matteo” in Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw; Uncle The Rock is the titular “Hobbs.”

When Anoa’i becomes free of the WWE ropes to actively pursue acting (beyond playing the Roman Reigns character, of course), he doesn’t want to do a dozen films — the current Fast count — in the same franchise. Anoa’i said he already receives a lot of scripts, but the WWE famously keeps its wrestlers (called “Superstars”) busy, 52 weeks a year. Though there are some breaks for talent here and there, the top guy rarely gets time off, and Reigns recently spent a company-record 1,316 straight days at WWE Universal Champion. And oh yeah, he’s a cancer survivor. The man could use a breather.

Even when he’s retired from the ring, Anoa’i aims to be deliberate with how he allocates his time acting.

“I almost want to model it after Tarantino, where we’re not just doing anything and everything,” Anoa’i said. “I want to really plot out: I want this one, I want that one.”

OK, so maybe his acting career won’t be exactly like Uncle Dwayne’s.

It certainly doesn’t have to be. Though Johnson is the WWE’s most-successful crossover mega-star, John Cena is also current enjoying a lucrative film and television career. There are similarities as well as differences.

WWE President Nick Khan told Vanity Fair that Reigns is both “a massive star and completely unique.”

“We often say at WWE that the next star never looks like the last star,” Khan said. “As John Cena winds down his career, it has been great to see our current perennial WrestleMania main eventer, Roman Reigns, look, sound, and act in a completely different way than anyone you have seen previously at WWE.”

There is a ton of natural crossover between being a WWE Superstar and a Hollywood actor. So much of the pro-wrestling job is not the wrestling part but cutting promos, the phrase used for presenting the audience with one’s storyline using words, not chops. Without a strong promo game, careers are cut very short — unless Paul Heyman is in your corner.

Anoa’i’s on- and off-screen adviser is Paul “The Wiseman” Heyman, the founder and owner of the now-defunct Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and a future WWE Hall of Famer in his own right. He’s arguably the best mouthpiece to ever stand on the ring’s apron. Heyman is a natural talker, a solid actor and a bit of a cinephile.

When Heyman and Reigns were teamed up, he told Anoa’i he’ll be the “[Martin] Scorsese to your Robert De Niro” or his “David Chase to your [James] Gandolfini.”

Ambitious as that may be, in the pro-wrestling world, these are not outrageous comparisons for the Wiseman and the Tribal Chief.