Why are Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar meeting at SummerSlam 2022?

It’s the final time that we’ll see these two guys wrestle in the main event of a major pay-per-view. Well, that’s at least what the company is telling us.

That’s right, the main event of SummerSlam on Saturday will feature undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns once again defending his title against Brock Lesnar. It’s a tried and true match that has main evented multiple Wrestlemania’s and SummerSlam’s over the past seven and half years. The final battle (or so we’re told) of this feud will be a Last Man Standing match as these two titans of the sport are set to brawl around Nissan Stadium in Nashville. Let’s take a look at how we got here.

Why are they fighting?

This current iteration of the feud began one year ago at last year’s SummerSlam, where Lesnar returned to the WWE and made his intentions of hunting Reigns down for his Universal Championship very clear. The two met in the main event of the Crown Jewel pay-per-view a few weeks later, a match where Reigns got over with help from the Bloodline and Paul Heyman.

Fast forward to Wrestlemania 38 this past April where Reigns, still the Universal Champion, and Lesnar, the WWE Champion, met in a winner-take-all main event. In a 12-minute fight that was considered decent but underwhelming, Reigns emerged victorious to unify the titles.

Various reports suggested that the initial plans were to do Reigns vs. Randy Orton at SummerSlam. But when the Viper went down with a serious back injury earlier in the summer, the company decided to break the proverbial Brock Lesnar glass and go with the reliable matchup they’ve leaned on for so many years.

These two rivals haven’t really covered much new ground on television in the past month because there’s nothing really new to cover. The match itself sells itself. On top of the Last Man Standing stipulation, there is the element of Money in the Bank winner Theory potentially cashing in during the match. Both Reigns and Lesnar have beaten down the young upstart and have basically dared him to cash in, so it’s highly unlikely that he’ll successfully pull it off.

What should we expect from the match?

Last Man Standing matches are intriguing as the match ends when an opponent is incapacitated to the point where they can’t answer a 10-count. That means we should see plenty of violence and brawling around the ring as both men lay into each other.

Consequences of outcome

A Reigns victory would solidify his two-year reign as the champ and allow him to enter a potential showdown with Drew McIntyre at Clash at the Castle with both belts in hand. It would also possibly signal the end of the Lesnar era in WWE. The “Beast” has a strong bond with Vince McMahon and with the former chairman’s ouster from the company, the question looms over whether or not he’ll stick around.

A Lesnar victory would promptly end Reigns’ historic title run and he’d be the top dog heading into the fall. There’s potential to run his Wrestlemania 37 clash with Drew McIntyre back at Clash at the Castle but after that, who knows.