With injuries plaguing the company, WWE decided to have Roman Reigns defend his title against Brock Lesnar yet again for SummerSlam, and that’s a problem.
WWE is dealing with huge injuries at the top of their babyface depth chart. Cody Rhodes is sidelined up to nine months after undergoing surgery for a torn pectoral muscle.
Randy Orton could potentially miss the remainder of 2022 due to a back injury. The latter hurts WWE the most, as reports indicated that Orton was set to challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at SummerSlam on July 30 at Nissan Stadium, home of the Tennessee Titans.
What was WWE to do?
On the June 17 episode of Friday Night SmackDown, Reigns successfully defended his title against Riddle. Then, Reigns cut a promo saying that there is no one left to challenge him for the title. That is when Brock Lesnar’s music hit, and he attacked Reigns and The Usos to end the episode.
Afterward, WWE’s official Twitter account announced that Lesnar would be challenging Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at SummerSlam in a Last Man Standing Match.
Booking Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar highlights WWE’s biggest problem
Now that Reigns and Lesnar are set to compete once again, this highlights WWE’s biggest problem — their inability to build credible challengers for Reigns.
Once Rhodes and Orton were out with injury, the list of babyface challengers dwindled. Drew McIntyre is likely slated to challenge Reigns at Clash at the Castle in Cardiff, Wales on Sept. 3.
For SummerSlam, there was a credible challenger for Reigns in Bobby Lashley, a former two-time WWE Champion. He even motioned that he wanted the title at Hell in a Cell on June 5 after defeating Omos and MVP in a handicap match.
Instead, WWE went back to Lesnar in their time of need.
This will now be the ninth time that Reigns and Lesnar will compete in a match on a premium live event. The number could have been 10, as the two were set to fight for the Universal Championship at Day 1 on New Year’s Day, but Reigns was pulled from the match after testing positive for COVID-19. In total, eight of those nine matches were for the world title.
Take a look at the list, courtesy of Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp.