Roman Reigns Still Feels Effects Of COVID-19

Roman Reigns has been killing it with his character work and in-ring performance ever since taking up the Tribal Chief moniker. Reigns is one of, if not, the biggest names in the world of professional wrestling today – and sits at the top of wrestling juggernaut that is WWE.

The WWE Universal Champion is as tough outside the ring as he’s in it. He beat leukemia twice and recovered from COVID-19 after contracting it in December of 2021. But Reigns admits he’s still not a hundred percent even though he has recovered from the virus.

“For me, obviously in comparison to some of the worst scenarios that are out there and that we’ve seen through the pandemic, it wasn’t bad. For me, it was mainly a pretty good sinus infection, a bronchitis cough, a lot of chest tightness,” Reigns told Sports Illustrated during an interview.

“I still feel that actually. When I’m doing my conditioning because we don’t wrestle quite as much and we’re doing a lot of six-man [tag team matches], I don’t have singles matches as much as I used to, so I have to continue to really push the conditioning on my own and I’ve noticed in the past couple of weeks that when I really blow myself up on the bike or running, or whatever I’m doing, I can feel that tightness and a little bit of wheezing.

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“So it’s definitely something serious. As someone who is vaccinated and boosted, it still got to me and I still felt the effects. While they weren’t as severe as they can be for some, it did hang around and linger for a while.”

Reigns will be defending his title against former Shield brother Seth Rollins at the Royal Rumble this Saturday (Jan. 29). The PPV event takes place at America’s Center The Dome.