WWE Rumors - Former Royal Rumble winner made a last-minute decision to remove himself from WrestleMania
We are just a day away from WrestleMania 36 and WWE have overcome all the odds to put together a 16-match card.
It's not easy when your main event gets changed but the officials have adapted according to the situation and are doing the best to offer a unique event.
Roman Reigns' ouster from his WrestleMania match was a necessity given the coronavirus risk, and WWE is expected to book a replacement angle on the upcoming episode of SmackDown.
However, what went into Reigns making the call to pull out of his planned WrestleMania match?
Sportskeeda's Tom Colohue revealed a few important backstage details regarding Reigns' status on the latest edition of the Dropkick DiSKussions.
Tom told podcast host Korey Gunz that the decision to pull out of the match was a last-minute one for everyone involved backstage. The Big Dog hadn't told WWE about his intention to miss WrestleMania until a week before, and he was still involved in the promotion of his match in every possible way.
The situation, as we all know, got alarmingly worse in the past few days and Reigns was left with no option but to make the hard call. The former Universal Champion recognized that there was a real risk at play.
Tom revealed the following:
It's been kind of a last-minute thing for everyone involved. Roman himself didn't tell them that he wasn't going to be involved until less than a week beforehand. He was still involved in promos, promoting it, he was still doing face to faces with Goldberg, he was still involved in every possible way but then it started to, you know, the situation got worse and anyone in the world right now who is in any country affected by coronavirus knows that this situation has got worse fast. It has been very difficult to predict what's going to happen even in the next day. Things have gone crazy.
Roman saw that and recognized that there was a risk and not just to him but there was a prominent risk to him. It's a decision he came to himself, I'm sure there would be family and people who were talking to him about it, but it was his decision. WWE chose to respect that as they have done with everyone who wanted to self-quarantine.
Tom noted that there were people who got sick backstage and maybe those as well who were not adequately protecting themselves in the eyes of other people. These factors played a part in Roman's thought process and contributed to his final decision.
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