-Where should I put this thing? -You can put it...
-Right in the front and center? -Here, yeah.
Front and center. I mean...
[ Cheers and applause ]
-How's that look?
-You know, it's crazy.
The last time you were on the show,
you were on your way to WrestleMania.
And I said, "Next time you come on my show,
you're going to have two belts."
-Whoo!
-Well...
You do have two belts.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Come on.
Come on, now.
-He predicts the future, as well.
-Yeah, I predict the future. Oh, my gosh.
It just feels cool, even just to hold that thing.
-I know. -Yeah.
-It just looks good there. -It looks --
I'm leaving it here for the whole rest of --
-Everybody, take a picture. -Yeah, look at -- Yeah.
[ Audience cheers ]
-When you were a kid dreaming about even wrestling,
did you ever think you'd make it this big?
-[ Breathes deeply ]
I've always had great faith and confidence
that I was someth-- I was going to be something.
But you don't really know what that thing is,
and you don't really know how far it's going to go.
So, early on, I just wanted to be a football player.
You know? -Yeah.
-Watching the Super Bowl, picturing myself --
you know, "I'm going to Disney World!" --
you know and that moment.
-Yeah, of course, yeah. -You know?
-And then I just tied into WrestleMania
and thinking that's exactly how it's going to feel, you know?
-You get there, but you don't expect to win
and actually be the champ.
-And be double champ, too. -No, exactly.
-Yeah, yeah. [ Cheers and applause ]
-And then you're making history. -Thank you.
Yeah.
-Speaking of WrestleMania, Royal Rumble is tomorrow, okay?
But that kicks off the Road to WrestleMania.
-That's right.
-And fans -- there's a lot of speculation
on the socials, on the Twitters, on everything,
saying, maybe a possibility of Roman Reigns versus The Rock?
-Ah. [ Chuckles ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
-That's been, like, you know, the rumors,
and there's been a huge buzz on that
for a long time now -- I mean, years -- for years now.
But it's really picked up in the past couple years.
I believe he just came out with a statement saying
that he's not going to be, you know, ready in time,
which -- that's the face that, you know, everyone's making.
Like, hold on, wait. He trains every single day.
-Yeah, that guy's ready for -- -We all -- Yeah, yeah.
-That guy's ready for anything. -He's huge!
-Yeah, exactly. He's -- -But to his defense,
it's one thing to train with weights
and you know, the body building to look the part,
but to be able to get in the ring and do a main-event match,
a championship match, a universal, you know,
an undisputed WWE Championship match,
it takes a lot of conditioning.
It beats up your body.
So, there's more that goes into it
than just training in the weight room.
-It's a different way to work out.
-It's a three hundred and --
It's a professional-athlete type of situation,
where you have to condition, you have to --
you know, he does two out of the three things perfectly.
His nutrition and his weight training is on point.
But you have to condition yourself.
And you got to be ready to fall down.
You know, that's -- You never get away from that.
-Especially if you're going up against Roman Reigns.
-Oh. -[ Chuckling ] Yeah, yeah.
-That's number one, Dwayne.
-Yeah. [ Cheers and applause ]
-When you're going up against Roman Reigns,
you better get ready to fall down.
-Yeah. Who else is in the mix?
-Well, that's the beauty of it now,
is we've got so much stuff going on.
Right now, we got Sami Zayn that's in the mix,
and within my Bloodline, we've been doing
some beautiful TV over the past six months.
We have another guy by the name of Cody Rhodes
who's coming back from injury.
He was super white hot.
If you go back to -- I believe it was a Hell in a Cell match
he had with Seth Rollins,
his pectoral muscle was completely torn,
like in half.
So, if you go back and look, it's completely black and --
a giant bruise covering this guy.
A fourth of his body is completely broken,
and he goes out there,
and he puts on like a 40-minute performance,
and just completely wins over our entire fanbase.
So, a lot of guts, a lot of courage out of him.
And he's going to be coming back soon, too.
-You were telling me something backstage.
You were like --
-I'd smack all of them? Yeah, that's --
-No, no, you did say that, too, yeah.
But I was saying, like -- I was talking about, like,
what if I was a WWE Superstar,
what would my move be or whatever, you know?
People probably do this.
But then you were like,
"You've got to have a fire-up. You got to --"
What is a fire-up?
-Well, you got to have passion, right? You know what I mean?
We can't just -- As a WWE Superstar,
you don't just slam a guy and just sit there stoically --
you know what I mean?
Like, you've got to have some emotion.
You got to be able to emit energy, and that's what we do.
-Yeah. -You got to be able to fire up.
You've got to able to lose your, you know --
I don't want to start cursing in here,
but you got to be able to lose it, you know?
-You've got to lose your --
But do you say something when you do it, or you just --
-Anything.
It's funny, 'cause, like, nowadays,
the default, like, fire-up line is,
"Let's go!"
You hear it all the time.
"Let's go! Let's effing --"
They always do the same thing, right?
-Yeah. "Let's go." -Yeah. "Let's go."
-But I could -- But maybe I could top --
I think I could top, "Let's go!"
-I think we can do better than that.
[ Cheers and applause ] I think we got enough
creative energy in here to do better than that.
What do you got?
-What if -- 'cause I was saying,
I was like -- my villain,
probably my biggest thing I battle is --
with hosting a show is sleep -- people are falling asleep.
-Sleepy folks. -Yeah.
-So what if my catchphrase was, "Wake up"?
[ Laughter ]
-Now we're talking. -Right?
-Human caffeine right here. -Where do I --
Where do I -- Where do I look?
[ Dramatic music plays ]
-I think down the pipe.
You got like six of them here, so pick one.
[ Drumroll ]
♪♪
-Waaaake...
Wake up!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Wake up!
-That's what I'm talking about. Yeah!
-Wake up! Wake up!
[ Cheers and applause continue ]
[ Music ends ]
Wake up!
-Hey.
He kind of built it, too. -I'm exhausted.
-He hit that, "Waaaake..."
-[ Chuckling ] Yeah, I built it. -Yeah.
-Now I hurt something.
I think the left side of my body is bruised.
-Oh, no. -It's bruised.
Can we talk Royal Rumble?
-Please. Let's do it.
-You're facing off against Kevin Owens.
-[ Chuckling ] Yeah. -Wow.
[ Chuckling ] Wow. Really?
[ Audience booing ] -Yes.
-Yeah. What's -- Any --
What's your strategy going into this?
-Don't change anything.
-[ Laughs ] What do you mean?
-I've been beating up Kevin Owens for years now.
[ Cheers and applause ]
So... [ Laughter ]
Let me give this guy his due --
this is a tough, sturdy guy, you know?
And he's a little crazy.
He's willing to do anything out there.
-Mm-hmm.
But I've faced him a few times,
and I've been pretty successful,
So, for me, you know, I just feel like,
as long as I don't change anything,
if it's not broke, don't break it --
just stay in the same system.
Go out there and do what I do.
And pretty much, I feel like I'm genetically coded
to beat Kevin Owens every time.
[ Cheers and applause ] It's like -- It's like --
It's like the small print in my DNA.
-Yeah. -Yep, beat Kevin Owens?
Yeah, check. Done. -You got this.
-Yeah. -Alright.
Kevin, if you're watching, wake up.
[ Laughter ] -Wake up.
-Roman Reigns, everybody. [ Cheers and applause ]
The Road to WrestleMania kicks off tomorrow
at the Royal Rumble,
which you can see live on Peacock.
We'll be right back with stand-up from Cathy Ladman.
Stick around. [ Cheers and applause ]