WWE News: Very Interesting Original Plans For Finn Balor And Roman Reigns Before ‘WWE SummerSlam’

A ton of things changed over the last few months. When Roman Reigns got suspended, a lot of stuff changed for him at WWE SummerSlam and ended up working out for others. WWE Chairman Vince McMahon seemed to be opening up the potential for someone to take Reigns’ spot as well. Enter WWE NXT star Finn Balor, who became the No. 5 overall pick in the WWE Draft in July. He came in with a lot of fanfare, but many casual fans had never seen him before his first night on WWE RAW.

Despite this, it seemed WWE thought it would be best to put Balor right in the WWE Universal Title picture and have him beat Roman Reigns to do it. Balor would go on to defeat Seth Rollins at WWE SummerSlam this past Sunday, but get injured in the match. He would dislocate his shoulder and then put it back into place, but it would also end up tearing a labrum, which meant he had to get surgery to fix it. Therefore he had to drop the Universal Title, and now a fatal four way between Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Big Cass, and Kevin Owens will not determine the new champion next week on WWE RAW.

However, original plans for Reigns and Balor at SummerSlam were completely different, and things very well would have never turned out the way they did. According to the Wrestling Observer, WWE originally wanted Finn Balor to make his PPV debut at SummerSlam against Chris Jericho while Roman Reigns was going to face Seth Rollins for the Universal Title at the biggest party of the summer.

Things changed up a bit due to the Reigns’ suspension, which actually would have still seen the original Reigns/Rollins SummerSlam match but for the WWE World Title instead. Whereas the Universal Title would have gone to WWE SmackDown Live most likely. However, Reigns had to drop the WWE World Title due to suspension, and once he came back, the WWE didn’t want to put him in one of the top matches on the SummerSlam card. They didn’t even really allow a match for him at the event, as he just attacked Rusev before the Randy Orton/Brock Lesnar main event.

Interestingly, AJ Styles would have won the Universal Title had it gone to SmackDown Live as the match with John Cena was going to be for the title with Styles going over. Plans certainly switched up a lot with Reigns’ suspension, which is of course why Finn Balor won the new title. Now plans have to shift again with Balor going down for about four to six months. It has now been rumored that Roman Reigns will win the WWE Universal Title next week on RAW, which would take plans almost back to their original place.

Clearly, fans didn’t know Balor as much as WWE had hoped before he came to the main roster. A large section of the WWE fans did know him well, which is why he got the reactions he did most everywhere they went. However, due to the uncertainty they had with him, they wanted to debut the Demon King version of Balor earlier than most thought they would.

Most who knew Balor agreed it would have been a lot better to debut the painted version of him at SummerSlam and not on RAW, but WWE felt it would help draw interest in Balor. Judging from fan reaction as well as intrigue among casual fans, this did turn out to be a good plan as Balor managed to impress a lot of people and draw them in with his alter-ego. The paint at SummerSlam ended up being different, which was good for him.

Sadly, the injury will keep Finn Balor out of action and he will then have win back the fans he may have lost in his absence. Meanwhile WWE seems to be going back to business as usual with Roman Reigns possibly walking out with a World Title. There have been some rumors that Kevin Owens should be a favorite going in as well as some post-SummerSlam plans included Owens challenging Balor for the Universal Title at WWE Clash of Champions, but it does appear WWE is leaning more toward Reigns at this point.

[Image via WWE]