Not to state the obvious, but things sure do change fast in wrestling. Case in point: SummerSlam. The biggest party of the summer, WWE SummerSlam 2019 is going down on August 11th, just ten days away as of this writing. And yet two of the biggest matches on the card evidently still haven’t been made official yet.
Last night, I speculated on who Roman Reigns’ mystery assailant could’ve been. And two nights ago, I reported on WWE’s announcement of Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz at SummerSlam. But as of today, both of those may already be outdated, because that’s just how wrestling works. We move fast in this business.
With Roman, I played on the theory that same have that Buddy Murphy might’ve been the culprit due to him seemingly being spotted on the scene. Of course most don’t think he’d be in line for such a spot, even though he really should be getting a big push as far as I’m concerned. Many naturally suggest that Samoa Joe might be responsible since he’s Roman’s on-screen rival at the moment.
But according to old faithful Dave Meltzer, it’s neither of them. Or atleast, neither of them are set to face off with Reigns at SummerSlam.
According to the report, Roman is planned to be squaring off with Daniel Bryan a week from Sunday.
By that, one might reasonably assume that he’s the one who set up the attack for one reason or another. This would be interesting as it coincides with Bryan’s frequently promised but never delivered announcement, which they have teased for the past three straight weeks. The only speculation on the matter I’ve even seen would relate to him perhaps retiring. But there’s never been any solid basis to that, and it would conflict with the only hints Bryan has given us in which he claimed that he will ‘be doing something he’s never done before’ and go ‘higher’.
I suppose trying to murder Roman Reigns would match that criteria. The two did have a stellar bout at Fastlane 2015 years back, one of Roman’s first great matches. Roman’s improved dramatically since those days so seeing the two square off at SummerSlam would be welcome for sure.
Similar reports also suggest that Dolph Ziggler vs. Goldberg might be on the cards for SummerSlam.
This would seem entirely ridiculous if not for the fact that Ziggler has been constantly needling Goldberg in promos over the past few weeks. Dolph is seemingly trying to make himself into a bit of a legend killer, as he’s assaulted Shawn Michaels as well. This would obviously run contradictory to the match with the Miz that he’s currently supposed to have, but it’s easy enough to find some storyline reason not to do that. Most likely Ziggler will take Miz out in some way and he’ll end up missing the match. Therefore setting up someone to take his place and wouldn’t you know Ziggler’s luck? Just turns out to be Goldberg.
This is funny considering how much time they’ve spent on this supposed Miz/Ziggler match. And we’ve gotten a lot of good segments out of it too, dedicated purely to mislead the audience. But when you’re swapping out the Miz for Goldberg, I doubt you’ll get many complaints on that bait and switch.