The Roman Reigns attacker storyline was supposed to continue at Sunday's SummerSlam pay-per-view, but very few developments actually occurred in Toronto.
As seen on this week's episode of SmackDown Live, Buddy Murphy told Reigns that Rowan was his mysterious attacker. The latter responded by attacking Murphy during his SummerSlam match against Apollo Crews, and Bryan was seen watching the incident take place backstage.
According to WWE insider Brad Shepard, there was a "big segment planned" involving The Big Dog, Rowan and Daniel Bryan, but WWE wound up scrapping the entire thing.
Before SummerSlam, Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio reported the possibility of WWE running a Reigns-Bryan segment at the big show. Meltzer said that Vince McMahon simply ran out of time and space to add a Bryan vs. Reigns match to the SummerSlam card.
Even with no match on the card, Meltzer suggested that they would do a "reveal" segment of Reigns' attacker. But that obviously didn't end up taking place, and we'll have to wait until SmackDown Live to receive more answers and details on the perpetrator as well as the motive for attacking Reigns.
Related: Buddy Murphy Wants His SmackDown Debut To Be Against Roman Reigns
The whole saga began two weeks ago on the July 30 episode of SmackDown Live. Reigns was walking backstage when a bunch of equipment and debris fell onto him. He avoided serious injury, and surveillance footage caught Rowan leaving the scene.
On last week's episode of Raw, Reigns exited his vehicle in the backstage parking lot to confront Samoa Joe. Out of nowhere, another vehicle entered and rammed Reigns', and he barely avoided serious injury. The perpetrator drove off immediately before they could be identified.
What This Means
It's interesting that WWE would scrap a monumental storyline for one of their main pay-per-view shows, but it seems like Vince isn't in a rush to to move this Reigns-Bryan storyline forward. The longer they wait, the more the drama and suspense build up. We'll just have to wait and see what other developments occur this week.
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