Working hard on the promotional circuit to get millions of people to go watch Fast X – *spoiler alert* they will regardless – John Cena tracked through his old wrestling stomping ground to discuss his own personal hierarchy of wrestling greats and decided to put one of the current wrestlers he's shared the ring with on 94 occasions in the same breath as Ric Flair: Roman Reigns.

“So my personal number one, I think Roman Reigns has to be considered strongly,” Cena said via Fightful. “What he’s done with the championship, what he’s done as essentially a selective performer, he’s redefined how you do it. Not only that, the reason I really rest a lot of accolades on Roman’s shoulders, and I’ve told this to him personally, [is] his ability to pass energy to more than himself. [I haven’t seen it] since the Four Horsemen, but the difference between him and Ric is that Ric was always there and that’s brilliant. I love that Roman did it his own way by crafting his own personality, he did it his own way by redefining what it means to be at the tip of the sphere. He is there selectively, he has made himself exclusive and in doing so, he’s brought like eight people with them. He’s allowed the whole Bloodline to get over.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Reigns is at the same level as “Slick Ric,” a “Nature Boy” who is near-universally considered one of the top wrestlers of all time right up there with the likes of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan? But why? Is it because of his near-1,000-day championship reign? His string of main event matches at high-profile “Premium Live Events?” His Bloodline storyline, which is one of the longest, most intense storylines WWE has hit in a very long time? Though some may suggest that Reigns' decision to become a part-time performer flies in the face of Flair's workhorse mentality, making the comparison hard to justify, it's hard to argue that anyone has been a bigger star over the five years than “The Tribal Chief,” even if some fans have wanted to see some new blood at the top of the card.

John Cena comments on his own legacy ahead in the WWE.

Discussing where he falls in the hierarchy of the WWE Universe and wrestling history in general, John Cena complemented the men he's worked with as a pro, before giving props to Reigns once more, who has helped to elevate multiple superstars on his way to the top of the card.

“If you put me in that conversation, I could only help the person I was working with, while I was working with them,” Cena said. “The reputation that I had in that sauce, while I was in it was that I bury talent because I would really invest my whole [heart]. Like, I sat with Austin Theory for like ten hours. Not wasted a day, invested a day to talk about our why, like what’s our story going to be. I would do that with everyone, I live it, my heart is on the plate. What Roman does, just being affiliated with his energy, he gets so many people over, and that’s something I could never do, period. You’re with me, and you got a chance when you’re there, but a lot of times you went off to do stuff that wasn’t looked at in the some way, and then the perception of the audience is that [I] buried them. Roman’s ability to be that good and to spread his energy so thin that he makes other talent, and do it exclusively. That’s his difference from Ric, Ric was always the centerpiece. Roman has off days, but he’s still there. His presence is so great, I've never seen anything like it.”

While some fans will quibble with the notion that Reigns has created stars, as much like Cena in the past, he's left a graveyard littered with names like Cesaro, Daniel Bryan, and Drew McIntyre, who turned – or will soon turn – elsewhere to find opportunities to wrestle, Reigns has brought up the entire Bloodline and made Sami Zayn into a star on-par with anyone Hogan, Flair, or even Cena put over in their careers. If championship reigns are about winning matches, selling tickets, and making new stars, it would be hard to argue that Reigns hasn't checked all three boxes. When Reigns hangs his boots up, it's safe to assume that his career will be viewed with similarly rosey glasses as Cena's.