The Big Dog is now a 5x World Champion and a 2x Universal Champion
WWE appears to be moving full speed ahead with transforming Roman Reigns into the top heel on SmackDown. The newest Paul Heyman Guy became the WWE Universal Champion at Payback and will most likely hold the championship for a long time, since The Big Dog has never held a world championship for an extended time. This title reign might have a similar trajectory to John Cena’s run with the WWE Championship in 2006 – 2007 when he held the title for over a year (the reason Cena relinquished the title was that he tore a pectoral muscle and had to leave WWE to take care of the injury).
This makes perfect sense for WWE to put the Universal Championship on Roman for two reasons:
- It makes for a rather sudden change in storyline to draw more fans to tune into SmackDown every week to see what the face of the company will do next; and
- While the first reason is purely from a business perspective, it makes sense within the framework of the story because Roman Reigns never lost the Universal Championship.
Now from a reality standpoint, he along with the company made the decision to build the reputation of his character back up organically when Roman returned from dealing with leukemia a year and a half ago.
The Fiend should continue his storyline with Braun Strowman and Alexa Bliss, causing dissension in the relationship between them. Alexa was shown on camera during the Universal Title match (before Roman Reigns made his appearance). This was smart storytelling because The Fiend has another story to immediately turn his attention to and thus will not lose any momentum with regard to his character despite dropping the title.
Keith Lee defeats Randy Orton, and another Main Event Caliber Star has been instantly created in WWE
Randall Keith Orton has had a positive stretch recently putting over younger superstars, which is exactly what Drew McIntyre pointed out that Orton had not done very often in his career. In the last two Pay-Per-Views, Orton has cemented Drew McIntyre as a legitimate superstar in WWE at SummerSlam, and just one week later he put over McIntyre’s good friend Keith Lee as a legitimate threat in WWE immediately to start his main roster run.
This match was reminiscent of the Elimination Chamber Pay-Per-View in 2015 when Kevin Owens defeated John Cena in his debut match on May 31, 2015. Now five years later, Randy Orton did the same thing to create a new start in The Limitless One.
The only difference is that Orton will not start a long-term storyline with Lee as Cena did with KO in the summer of 2015. Instead Orton will resume his WWE Championship regulatory with Drew McIntyre – setting out a rematch to take place at Clash of Champions on September 27.
The Mysterios defeat Seth Rollins and Murphy; Some Evidence of Discord between Rollins and Murphy was also Shown
Rey and Dominik Mysterio have excellent chemistry as a tag team, which would be expected given that they are father and son. I expected Rey to look as good as he did because he has been doing this for over 30 years. Dominik, however, was pleasantly surprising. The 23-year-old looked visibly nervous at SummerSlam (that’s a good amount of pressure to put on anyone – let alone a superstar making his debut), however he looked completely comfortable at Payback and as a result he performed much better. Dominik could be a major superstar in a few years because he has a real knack for the sport.
Since Dominik’s career is still in its embryonic stage, he is still in a phase where he is heavily reliant on his father’s legacy. The next stage in his character’s evolution will be breaking out to form his own persona and signature on the business. That may be happening sooner rather than later because Rey unfortunately suffered a torn tricep at Payback (the same injury suffered by Edge at Backlash in June in The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever – Edge looked utterly fantastic in that match, showing multiple moves that have never been seen before out of him). This injury will probably mean about an eight or nine-month recovery for Mysterio.
Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler defeated the Golden Role Models for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships
The team of Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler was formed the same way most tag teams in WWE are formed – two bitter enemies who develop a partnership based on how much they don’t like the champions. Maybe this partnership will evolve into a friendship; or Jax and Baszler might go their separate ways if the storyline fails to gel with the WWE universe.
As for Bayley and Sasha Banks, a match might be orchestrated between the two women for the SmackDown Women’s Championship in the near future seeing as that’s the only championship either one of them hold right now. This will be the payoff to the long-term story WWE has been in the process of building between these women over the last two or three years.
Three brand-new singles stars in WWE were created at Payback; Randy Orton put over Keith Lee, King Corbin put over Matt Riddle, and Sheamus put over Big E
In addition to Keith Lee, WWE is also in the process of creating new stars in the form of Big E with his long-awaited singles push and Matt Riddle, the recent NXT call-up.
Riddle got a victory over King Corbin, establishing The Bro as a legitimate star on SmackDown and a champion in the future. Corbin, however, will be a Universal or WWE Champion in the near future because of his excellence in portraying the heel persona. King Corbin already has all the accolades he needs; he is just waiting along with WWE for the right time to pull the trigger. It was actually in the original plans for 2022 make Corbin Universal Champion by now. Originally, it was in the cards for Roman Reigns to win the Universal Title from Bill Goldberg at WrestleMania 36; after holding the title for a while, Reigns would have lost his title to Corbin.
Meanwhile, Sheamus put over Big E, a very unselfish move by the 42-year-old. Big E is currently on the steady climb to becoming a top star in WWE. It was reported a few weeks ago that Mr. McMahon made the difficult decision to make Roman Reigns the face of the company over Big E in 2014. This decision came down to these two guys, and Mr. McMahon clearly made the right choice (Big E has an adequate amount of perspective on this and is on the right path right now).
Bobby Lashley, the CEO of The Hurt Business, takes the United States Championship from Apollo Crews
Lashley won his second championship in WWE since returning to the main roster in April 2018, and his first in over a year. Hopefully Bobby’s rivalry with Brock Lesnar will come to fruition in the near future (it needs to happen soon if those plans are in the works, because both men are in their 40s).
Apollo Crews might need to be off TV for a couple of months to let his character incubate for a while before ultimately returning with a new creative element to his character.