The third and likely final match for the foreseeable future between Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens was memorable.
Reigns put the Universal Title on the line against the SmackDown star in a Last Man Standing bout. at the Royal Rumble. The match saw Reigns toss him off the platform with all of the screens through tables. Owens crawled to the backstage area, but Reigns ran him over in a golf cart. Owens climbed a forklift and hit a swanton bomb off it.
Owens handcuffed him to the stage support beam, but Reigns shoved the referee into the beam. Moments later, Paul Heyman came out to let Reigns free. Reigns locked in the guillotine choke to make Owens pass out for the win.
Their first match took place at last month’s TLC pay-per-view event where “The Big Dog” walked out victorious. The rematch took place on the December 24th edition of SmackDown inside a Steel Cage that also saw Reigns retain the title.
It appeared that WWE was moving on from this feud, but that wasn’t the case. WWE held a Gauntlet Match on the January 8th edition of SmackDown that featured Daniel Bryan, King Corbin, Shinsuke Nakamura, Sami Zayn, and Rey Mysterio.
It was later revealed that WWE agent Adam Pearce would be the final competitor after Paul Heyman pulled some strings so that way he could face Nakamura. The plan went accordingly as Uso and Reigns beat down Nakamura, which allowed Pearce to win and become the #1 contender to the Universal Title.
A few weeks passed by that eventually led to Owens replacing Pearce and he was declared as the new challenger.
What are your thoughts on Roman Reigns retaining the Universal Title? Was this the right call by WWE officials? Sound off in the comment section.