WWE fans looking to pile onto Roman Reigns for not defending the unified titles he won at WrestleMania 38 at premium live events just got a bit more to work with. The Tribal Cheif beat Brock Lesnar at the Showcase Of The Immortals in early April. Since then, he's renegotiated his deal and has been on both Raw and SmackDown less frequently than expected.
Reigns has defended the unified titles just one time over the past 100 days. That match didn't take place at Backlash, Hell In A Cell, or Money In The Bank. It didn't happen on a premiere episode of Monday Night Raw or during some other special event. Instead, it came on the June 17 episode of Friday Night SmackDown, when he successfully defended his championship against Riddle. The stipulation of that match was that Riddle wouldn't ever be allowed to challenge for the unified title as long as Reigns held it, and at this rate, Deep Waters is never going to get another championship match.
Not because Riddle isn't a deserving wrestler, but because Reigns simply isn't being booked to defend the titles by WWE. At all. The company's official Twitter handle, @WWE recently released the first advertisement for October's Extreme Rules premium live event, and Roman Reigns is nowhere to be seen on the graphic. Things can obviously change, but that seems to indicate that, as of this writing, WWE doesn't plan to have Reigns involved at Extreme Rules.
The card is still several months away and any number of things could happen between now and then. Not the least of which is Roman Reigns' Last Man Standing match against Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam. With Lesnar looking as dangerous as ever and Theory looming large as a threat to cash in his Money In The Bank briefcase, there's no guarantee that Reigns will still be the unified champion by the time Extreme Rules rolls around. If he makes it through SummerSlam with both belts, however, it seems likely that he'd retain through October and this premium live event.
Even if Reigns isn't still carrying around both belts, he's one of WWE's most important attractions. His missing four of the five premium live events since 'Mania is noteworthy. Besides Lesnar, he's the most protected superstar in the company, and Vince McMahon saw fit to put both major men's titles on him for a reason. To make WrestleMania 38 feel as big as possible, sure. But he's also one of only a small handful of credible world champions that WWE has built over the last decade. John Cena is still arguably the biggest draw WWE has (occasional) access to, while Reigns and Lesnar tower over former champions such as Finn Balor, AJ Styles, and even Seth Rollins. Maybe the plan is to try and get Theory onto that level sooner rather than later so he can work more matches. Odds are good he'll be involved at Extreme Rules, at least. Roman Reigns, at least at this juncture, probably won't be.
Source: @WWE/Twitter