Shortly after WrestleMania 38 ended with Roman Reigns pinning Brock Lesnar to unify the WWE and Universal titles, online speculation about Reigns’ health started.
The main event featured Roman telling Paul Heyman his shoulder was “out” after he was trapped in a Lesnar kimura lock. The Tribal Chief won the match with a spear moments later, and the announcers were pointing out how he “pulled his shoulder back in” before gingerly lifting his belts above his head.
popped his shoulder back in PLEASE pic.twitter.com/K6J3cHYTGf
— ツ (@speareigns) April 4, 2022
All of that led to talk of a legitimate injury. Then days passed without any official word or even a report from one of pro wrestling’s more reliable sources about Roman being hurt — which would normally indicate that social media doctors had misdiagnosed the situation. But at the same time, the way WWE booked Reigns last week gave the impression they were stalling, which kept the whispers going.
Now, we have a wrestling journalist going on the record to say the Undisputed WWE Universal champ wasn’t hurt*. Dave Meltzer and Sunday Night’s Main Event host Mike McGuire both say they wondered if Reigns was hurt based on the finish of the Lesnar match, but Meltzer’s sources tell him there was no audible on WrestleMania Sunday:
“I thought it might be [a legit injury] too. But I don’t think Reigns is gonna go in there if his shoulder’s out and scream, ‘My shoulder’s out!’ ... mentally he would do the opposite. I know a lot of people were talking about it afterwards, that it was like an injury finish and things like that. But no, I asked around and it was exactly what it was supposed to be.”
We’ll see if that puts an end to speculation. This being the internet, I suspect it will persist until Reigns wrestles again, but we’ll see.
* Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp has been vocal in saying he didn’t think Reigns was hurt, but to my knowledge hasn’t reported confirmation of his analysis with WWE sources.
Loading comments...