Former CFL Player wins Royal Rumble … Really he did!
You read it right, a former CFLer Roman Reigns (WWE stage name) won ‘Royal Rumble’and clinched a berth into ‘WrestleMania‘. See where he played in the CFL!
In case you’ve been hiding under a rock from Twitter on Sunday night into Monday, you may have missed the general outrage among the professional wrestling community.
The outcome of Sunday night’s “Royal Rumble”event in Philadelphia has many fans extremely upset. So upset, in fact, that the hashtag #CancelWWENetwork was trending worldwide well into Monday, as many fans have been cancelling their subscription ever since Roman Reigns was the last man standing, earning himself a shot at the title in WrestleMania 31.
The city of Philly just tipped over the Roman Reigns bandwagon and set it on fire.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) January 26, 2015
#CancelWWENetwork trending #1 Worldwide. Yikes that’s not good for buisness. Thats not good for anybody — Tommy Dreamer (@THETOMMYDREAMER) January 26, 2015
What you may not realize though is that we have seen the likes of Roman Reigns before, long before his days in the ring. Back in 2008, he went by the name Joe Anoa’i, a 280-pound defensive lineman out of Georgia Tech who spent one season in the CFL with the Edmonton Eskimos, where he registered nine tackles in six games with the green and gold.
Anoa’i’s biggest game came on September 13th, a 38-33 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, where the former Yellow Jacket tied for the team lead with five tackles and a forced fumble.
Despite the negative backlash the WWE is receiving, we can all agree that the professional wrestling world has been a better fit for Anoa’i than the gridiron. Perhaps he was lured away by a family member who took a similar path? His cousin Dwayne Johnson (better known to some as The Rock) was released two months into a brief stint with the Calgary Stampeders back in 1995 before pursuing an alternative career path.
What we want to know is which CFL player would you put your money on in a Royal Rumble?
Soloman Elimimian? John Chick? Ricky Foley? Kyries Hebert? Let us know!
