Roman Reigns says he doesn’t see his character as a babyface or a heel. According to comments he made recently during an interview with CBS Sports, Reigns just considers his character as someone in a storyline who has to make tough choices.

“A lot of people want to say, ‘Oh, he’s a heel.’ And, ‘Oh, he was a babyface,” and this and that. I try not to look at it as that. I try to look at it as this being a character in a storyline and he has choices like anyone else.”

“Some of his choices are going to be perceived as good, some of them are going to be perceived as bad and some of them people won’t understand because they won’t understand where he’s coming from,” Reigns said.

Reigns echoed sentiment recently expressed by his cousin about their feud. He said that the real-life aspects to their angle have helped them connect with the audience.

“I’ve taken these real-life qualities and experiences and put them in a storyline. That has been able to connect with our audience in a really cool way because they’ve seen me grow and they’ve seen my path and they’ve seen me operate on this top tier of WWE for a long time. For me to actually emote and explain the dimensions of it, I think they dig that and the feeling that the fourth wall is down from time to time. To me, this is Roman. He’s not Joe. I’m able to connect to everything I’m doing now way stronger than anything I’ve done before.”

Reigns is scheduled to defend the Universal Championship against Braun Strowman on Friday’s Smackdown season premiere. During a recent interview with ESPN, Reigns said he doesn’t know why the match is even happening.

“To be honest, I don’t think Braun Strowman deserves the opportunity,” Reigns said. “I beat him, I pinned him, I took the Universal Championship from him.”