Roman Reigns took aim at CM Punk during a recent meme review segment on IGN’s YouTube channel. Despite his absence from WWE television since being taken out by Seth Rollins at Royal Rumble 2025, Reigns found an opportunity to reference his complicated relationship with Punk.
The Original Tribal Chief and Paul Heyman reviewed various internet memes featuring Reigns, including one that captured a tense moment between him and CM Punk at Survivor Series 2024. During that premium live event, the two rivals temporarily aligned to defeat Solo Sikoa’s Bloodline in the Men’s WarGames match, though tensions remained visible throughout.
The specific meme showed the moment when Reigns prevented Punk from entering the match, resulting in Punk’s intense stare-down reaction. The image had been repurposed with NFL team logos, featuring CM Punk represented by the Cleveland Browns and Reigns by the Pittsburgh Steelers.
When shown this meme during the segment, Reigns first commented on the football teams before shifting focus to Punk:
Oh, so I’m guessing this is like a playoff situation. The Steelers keeping the Browns out, but let’s just get one thing correct here. Cleveland sucks. Pittsburgh sucks. Niner Gang (Bang! Bang!)
After Heyman suggested the image shouldn’t be online, Reigns disagreed and used the opportunity to directly address his relationship with Punk: <blockquote> Well, this got a lot of love, though. This is stupid, but this photo is good, and this moment was excellent. This has real meaning here. Punk can’t do sh*t while I’m around. Punk’s in it, four. It’s a four with Browns and Steelers, irrelevant football teams. It’s a four. I’m the only thing keeping this thing in a positive. </blockquote>
The comments highlight the ongoing tension between the two stars, even as both remain involved in separate storylines. Their brief alliance at Survivor Series 2024 did little to resolve their long-standing animosity, which appears to continue despite their limited on-screen interactions since that event.