Roman Reigns’ SummerSlam Status, Vince McMahon Makes Changes

– SummerSlam is this weekend and one star will unexpectedly sit out in-ring action. The Big Dog, Roman Reigns, looks like he won’t have a match on Sunday.

Reigns had a planned match going in against Daniel Bryan, but PWInsider reports that plans seemed to change overnight backstage at SmackDown this week. The angle with the forklift accident was designed to feed into a program with Bryan. They want that storyline to play out more so, reportedly, the match is getting called off or postponed.

Two storylines that were building and slowly intertwining the last few weeks are being held up if the report is true. Bryan was going to have a big announcement, something “career-altering.” Teased with minor video packages a few weeks ago, it was never mentioned on Tuesday’s show. Writers could work it back in later but the angle looks to be scrapped as well, for now.

As for the attack on Roman, the creative team pitched a bunch of ideas to explain who is behind it and maybe even why. Bryan was the planned attacker but we found out last Tuesday on SmackDown it was Rowan when Reigns coerced the information out of Buddy Murphy. Rowan, as of now, is a tentative suspect and may not be the real perpetrator in the end. To add to the confusion, Murphy said he saw Rowan on the scene and little else, leaving the door open for an alternative payoff.

The most we can expect to see of Reigns and the angle on Sunday is some sort of segment or spot to further the storyline taking place at the pay-per-view. A tag match teaming Reigns with Samoa Joe against Rowan and Bryan is also rumored. Joe is implicated in the mystery and could be in for a face run, but everything is fluid right now.

– The big reason for all the up-to-the-minute changes is none other than Vince McMahon. As we noted, McMahon reportedly rejected the original script for this week’s SmackDown and kept making changes into the second hour. He’s done this for three weeks straight. PWInsider reported there were a lot of changes made to last Tuesday’s show within hours of airtime.

Dave Meltzer reported the original main event pitched was WWE Champion Kofi Kingston vs. Daniel Bryan. That changed to Kofi and Xavier Woods vs. Bryan and Rowan but the main event, in the end, saw Bryan and Rowan facing SmackDown Tag Team Champions Big E and Woods.

Kofi was pulled from the match an hour before the show. He was set at one point to face Andrade in the main event. That was ultimately scrapped too. Instead, Kofi’s match with Randy Orton at SummerSlam was built up with pre-taped interviews.

The Bryan-Reigns feud is expected to continue. Matches between them are planned for upcoming live events. Fans may recall they wrestled a number-one contender match at Fastlane 2015 to decide who would face Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 31.

SummerSlam airs live this Sunday on WWE Network.