Roman Reigns suffered an undisclosed injury back at SummerSlam when he defended his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship against Jey Uso. Reigns was back on the latest Friday Night SmackDown, but other than a brief interaction with Uso he didn’t have to get physical during the show. Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select offered a new update on “The Tribal Chief,” stating that — as of now — he’s not expected to miss any upcoming WWE dates. Reigns has been operating on a lighter schedule since April 2022 and is not advertised for WWE’s next pay-per-view, Payback, in early September.
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Sapp also noted that Reigns’ injury is not a back issue. There was some speculation that it might have been either that or a hip issue as it’s believed the sequence below is where Reigns’ injury occurred.
Paul Heyman on Roman Reigns’ Run
Paul Heyman appeared on Reigns’ behalf during the SummerSlam post-show press conference and once again made the claim that Reigns’ run of dominance is only in the “third inning.” His record-setting world championship run is currently up to 1,073 days.
“We are just figuring this stuff out,” Heyman said. “We haven’t even hit our stride yet. If you want to take the arrogant approach, I’m sure Paul Levesque will tell you all the box office records that have been smashed. Every Friday night when we show up at SmackDown, we’re always told, ‘This is the largest gate of this and the largest gate of that.’ ‘This is the largest premium live event.’ ‘This is the largest WrestleMania.’ Okay, we can sit there and point to what clearly drove all this, and it’s the Bloodline, and when I say the Bloodline, I mean the Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns.
“There is so much more for us to master. It’s a craft, and it’s an evolving craft. It’s an ever-evolving form of entertainment,” he continued. “If you sit there and you think, ‘We got this, this is it, we’re cruising to WrestleMania,’ we’re going to be replaced, and we should be. If you don’t come at this with the greatest ambitions to be much better tomorrow than you are today and much better two days from now, then you’re not here to be the greatest of all time.”
WWE’s Premium Live Event Schedule for The Rest of 2023
WWE has four pay-per-views left for the remainder of 2023. That list includes Payback at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh (Sept. 2), Fastlane at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis (Oct. 7), a yet-to-be-named Saudi Arabia show on Nov. 4 and the annual Survivor Series show at Allstate Arena in Rosemont (Chicago), Illinois on Nov. 25.
