The match
Roman Reigns defends the Universal championship against John Cena in the main event of tonight’s (Sat., Aug. 21, 2021) WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view (PPV) from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The story
There wasn’t a lot to this at first.
Cena returned at Money in the Bank, immediately after Reigns had successfully defended his title against Edge, and made clear the two were on a collision course. Then he made it even more clear in a promo doing his same old, same old. Reigns responded to this by comparing him to the missionary position:
Oh, @WWERomanReigns w/ @HeymanHustle actually went there. #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/3lFDuE3Xly
— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) July 24, 2021
Then it got kind of dumb, with Reigns ignoring Cena and turning his attention to Finn Balor, who looked poised to get a shot at the Universal championship with a contract signing and everything. Cena, shameless as ever, just stole the contract and signed his own name on it. Because this is WWE, that made it official.
With not much going for the story beyond the aforementioned sexual position reference, there was a decision made to give the two of them a microphone, put them in the ring across from each other, and let it fly. This was the result of that:
They went full meta, with meta references galore. Admittedly, Cena is pretty good at walking the line of meta against telling a story that makes sense within the context of an actual wrestling match. In this case, he admitted he’s going to get beat up at SummerSlam but all he needs to do is not give up and put himself on top for three seconds. That puts all the pressure on Reigns.
Reigns, seeing that Cena believes he’s better, decided to up the ante — hey, we’re in Vegas, baby — and added a stipulation that if he loses the title, he’ll leave WWE.
As far as unnecessary stipulations WWE will never follow through on anyway go, this one takes the cake, but there you have it.
All that’s left to do is have the match!