SummerSlam is effectively the mid-point journey to get to the next WrestleMania, and now that Roman Reigns has retained the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, how will the rest of this play out?
Let’s address the elephant in the room right out of the gate. Yes, Roman Reigns is still going to be holding that belt by the time WrestleMania 40 comes around. If you are telling yourself “maybe” he might not, you’re just fooling yourself. He is NOT dropping that title at Payback, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, etc.
WWE has made it abundantly clear time after time that his run is their top priority. He is meant to break more records. There’s no chance he’s losing the title to just anyone. He’s not dropping it at any show other than Mania. Even if he’s injured, he’s just going to take time off, because he barely defends the title anyway. EVERYTHING from the past 2 years has said, flat out, “Roman is keeping these belts for as long as we want to keep this going, and it isn’t just an experiment. It is a pet project with a mission. We’ll even create another title just to have a working championship because his status as champion is not budging.”
With all that in mind and out of the way, we can move on to the real heart of the matter and the question of this article. What do you do with Roman Reigns for the next 8 months?
None of us know what WWE has in store or on the back burner to fully predict that much of the programming to come. I can certainly toss out some theories, and will over the coming months. Basically, it boils down to killing time with as few appearances he can do as possible while checking off essentially Saudi Arabia’s show in autumn, Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, and it all boils down to whether he’ll fight The Rock, Cody Rhodes or Seth Rollins.
But what would YOU do if you had some creative control over this? How would YOU book The Tribal Chief’s journey leading into WrestleMania 40?
I hereby present to you my fantasy booking ideas following what happened at SummerSlam.
Remainder of August Leading into September = Payback + Superstar Spectacle
Maybe I should preface this by saying that if I had creative control a year ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation at all, as I would have gone with Cody winning at Mania 39, not dragged out the Bloodline Civil War or Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens still feuding with them, etc. But I’m booking this with the thought process that I’m jumping onto the team today. So let’s be realistic.
Jimmy Uso vs. Jey Uso is the next chapter of The Bloodline story. It isn’t a matter of Roman Reigns defending his title at all. And if he’s injured, he’s certainly not appearing at this B-level event like Payback. Seth Rollins is going to headline that show with his title instead.
So over the coming weeks, we’ll see a focus entirely on Jimmy and Jey with Solo Sikoa and Paul Heyman mixed in, at most, while Reigns is just M.I.A. Sorry, but this is what you’re getting with this championship run.
When it comes to Superstar Spectacle that immediately follows Payback, that is a bought show that WWE is doing not because they want to sell tickets, but because they want to appeal to the Indian marketplace more. They will not care about stacking that show. It’s effectively the pay-per-view equivalent of Main Event and NXT Level Up in that they’re filling a contractual obligation with whatever they can scrounge up.
Roman is not going to appear on that show, either. If he does, it will be in some sort of non-competing capacity, like having a promo segment to set up his next opponent. If I could force something, I would personally book him to defend his title in a Triple Threat match against both Jimmy and Jey, but I doubt that would get approved.
October = Fastlane + Crown Jewel
Realistically, Roman’s not going to compete at Fastlane, either. If I had it my way, and if we’re going with the assumption my Triple Threat would be denied outright and couldn’t be applied here instead, then if I had to pick someone for Reigns to fight on this show, it would be either AJ Styles or Bobby Lashley.
But the real thing to watch out for in October is the next Saudi Arabia show. Likely, this is Crown Jewel, and it will almost assuredly happen at the tail end of October (21st, 22nd, 28th or 29th) or very early in November (4th or 5th). Now that is a show that WWE will want to have Reigns on because the Saudis pay a good amount of money for those attractions.
In my fantasy booking, I’d be pitching desperately for this to be Reigns vs. The Rock.
I know what you’re thinking. Why would that go here instead of WrestleMania? You must be crazy, Tony! Well, there are 4 reasons why I’d be harping on this:
- The strikes going on in Hollywood right now puts Dwayne Johnson’s projects on hold. He has nothing else that should stop him from being able to do it, and for all we know, things might ramp back up come the beginning of 2024 and stop him from doing WrestleMania.
- This match has been delayed for years, and WWE has a bad track record of thinking dream matches can happen “down the line”, only for them to never come to pass. Look at Undertaker/Sting for example.
- The Endeavor sale could be happening around here. They’ll want to impress the Saudi Arabia money-backers and keep their relationship with them solid. What better way than to get this big dream match on there?
- It frees up WrestleMania. We know The Rock isn’t going to beat Roman for the title, so let’s give it to someone who actually can so that we don’t have to wait until WrestleMania 41.
Unlikely from a prediction standpoint, but this is what Fantasy Booking is all about—pitching what you would do, not what you think WWE will do.
If this just absolutely cannot happen, then I think WWE needs to pull the trigger on Solo Sikoa being the challenger. It would be a simple one and done type thing and honestly not the most engaging or interesting story, but it would get people buzzing just because it’s another in-fighting Bloodline deal. Frankly, I’m over it, but plenty other people aren’t.
If that is the case and it is Reigns vs. Sikoa, then I would pitch that it has to end with everyone getting back on board to realign as The Bloodline. No more fighting with each other. They can’t just do that forever, and I don’t think this has enough legs to drag out all the way to a Jimmy vs Jey vs Solo match at WrestleMania, either. Not that that hasn’t stopped WWE from having Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton stretch for 7 months and such in the past, mind you.
November = Survivor Series
For my money, WarGames shouldn’t be a regular thing on the calendar as it runs into the same problems as Hell in a Cell and TLC being their own pay-per-views. Survivor Series should revert back to the Raw vs. SmackDown competition. Subtitle it Bragging Rights to bring back that trademark, do the traditional elimination matches, don’t force yourself to shoehorn in a WarGames match with random teams of people, and just settle on Champion vs Champion for a bulk of the card like normal.
That means the World Heavyweight Champion vs. Roman Reigns. Now is your time to do that Seth Rollins match that will look great on paper and doesn’t have any influence on the title scene whatsoever. Rollins can win the match if you want to continue that narrative that he has Roman’s number, and you can even have this be as a result of interference from the person Reigns feuds with after Survivor Series. Or, alternatively, you can just have Reigns beat Rollins here with the same thing going on, or clean. It really does not matter. But Rollins vs. Reigns helps sell the event, on top of Team Raw vs. Team SmackDown, the two women’s title-holders against each other (maybe by then, it’s Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte Flair in a rematch, or Ripley vs. Iyo Sky), IC title vs US title and so on.
December = Nothing / Royal Rumble Build
There’s no December event outside of possibly NXT Deadline returning. All that month is used for is filler shows and “special episodes” of television.
All Reigns needs to do is start building toward his Royal Rumble plans, and only really doing the bare minimum of that.
January = Royal Rumble
The headline draw is the Royal Rumble match itself, not Roman Reigns. He’s a bonus. Realistically, we all know he’s not dropping that belt at this event so that they can rush a new champion and challenger for WrestleMania, so don’t even bother to invest much in there.
Whoever Reigns hasn’t fought between AJ Styles and Bobby Lashley can be inserted here as the challenger. Maybe by now, LA Knight is in a position where people can buy him as a world title contender, and he can get the opportunity just to spice things up with a fresher opponent.
As far as the Royal Rumble is concerned, I think a subversion is in store. Cody Rhodes will go into it the favorite, but he’ll lose to Gunther. It’s a reverse of last year.
By this point, Gunther will have lost the Intercontinental Championship after surpassing Honky Tonk Man’s record in September. Who did he lose it to and when? That’s up to the moment, but I’d personally vote for Johnny Gargano at Fastlane.
February = Elimination Chamber
This is likely another Saudi Arabia event where, like the Royal Rumble, the main attractions will be the Elimination Chamber matches. We’ll have one for the men and one for the women to determine who fights the other champions who weren’t picked by the Royal Rumble winners.
At the very least, that should be the case for the men’s match. If WWE is absolutely desperate to pop a TV rating, the women’s division match could be one of the champions defending their title so that a No. 1 contender’s match can take place on Raw or SmackDown. Or, if they’re really desperate, both Raw and SmackDown have No. 1 contender matches with a special crossover match happening between those two winners to settle on the challenger.
But the focus of this piece is Reigns and his title, so let’s not dive too deep into the women’s division and why it will most likely be Becky Lynch vs. Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair vs. Charlotte Flair. Gunther won the Royal Rumble and he’s challenged Seth Rollins, meaning we need to establish Roman’s contender.
That gives Roman another event off. It’s what WWE would want and they wouldn’t listen to my pitches in any other way, I’m sure.
Take your pick of 5 challengers between Drew McIntyre, Damian Priest or Finn Balor, Kevin Owens / Sami Zayn, people like The Miz, Rey Mysterio, Gargano/Ciampa, Ricochet, Matt Riddle, Styles, Lashley, Austin Theory, Edge, Grayson Waller, Karrion Kross, Sheamus…there are lots of options.
But the only person that needs to be in that match in order to win it is Cody Rhodes.
Winning Elimination Chamber is his alternate path to WrestleMania after losing Royal Rumble so that we don’t have a direct copy/paste of 2023 and it casts some doubts for February, as people will assuredly be saying “I don’t know. If they were gonna go with Cody, they’d have given him the Rumble. Maybe it IS going to be ___ instead.”
The March to WrestleMania 40
Rhodes wins the right to challenge Reigns again. We’re doing Rocky II. He failed to win the belt on the first time around, and now that we’re in Philadelphia, he’s got another shot and he’s learned from his mistakes.
Ideal scenario, we get the culmination of these two stories with enemies of The Bloodline coming out to help Rhodes to offset the interference so that we don’t get a repeat. In particular, The Rock should make an appearance, as that pays off the Crown Jewel fight (or, if that didn’t happen and we went with Reigns/Sikoa, then it sets up Rock vs Roman at WrestleMania 41) and we get the big celebration with Rhodes as champion.
Following that, Reigns takes some time off. He heals up, gives fans some time to miss him, and allows the spotlight to shine on Rhodes and the new World Heavyweight champion, Gunther, who will have beaten Rollins at WrestleMania Saturday’s main event. Cody feuds with some fun people like Wyatt, Orton, and so on.
Eventually, when Reigns is ready to return, he can pop back up as a heel or a babyface, depending on if we have that Rock feud still in the future. If it’s going to happen at WrestleMania 41, then Reigns returns as a heel looking for revenge. But if they’ve already done that at Crown Jewel, then let’s go with babyface Reigns as a top contender to fight Gunther, as that’s one of the remaining huge feuds that would sell the marquee of WrestleMania 41 or any other major show.
What would you do with Roman Reigns for the next 8 months? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
