Report: Roman Reigns shot down WWE's idea for him to work with former Champion on SmackDown; reason revealed

Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens have been embroiled in a bitter rivalry on SmackDown of late. The Prizefighter Kevin Owens has given The Tribal Chief Roman Reigns a run for his money on both the occasions that the two men faced each other.

In both their matches, the sole reason why Roman Reigns came out victorious was because of outside help from his cousin Jey Uso. As per reports from Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, WWE had planned to introduce former NXT North American Champion Damien Priest into the storyline to help KO, but the plans were nixed.

The reason stated was that Priest was set to enter as Kevin Owens' best friend and help him in his fight against Reigns and Uso. However, Owens was not too thrilled with the idea.

In an update on this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it has been revealed that even Roman Reigns did not want to have a program with Damien Priest as he feels that there is no point in adding a "random person to the main event mix." It was also revealed that Damien Priest will likely be heading to RAW instead of SmackDown.

But that didn’t work out and Reigns felt it wasn’t the time to introduce a new person and after that, it was pretty much agreed by both Reigns and Owens that it wasn’t the right time to introduce a random person to the main event mix that didn’t seem to fit. As of right now, and this could change, Priest is scheduled for the RAW roster and to debut at the end of the month

The reason why Kevin Owens did not want Damien Priest added to the storyline with Roman Reigns

Kevin Owens reportedly felt that there is no backstory to Damien Priest being introduced as his best friend on SmackDown as the two did not have anything in common. Owens did have an alternate idea for WWE:

Owens apparently said that they should redo it where WWE officials book Priest as his tag team partner for his benefit because he keeps getting beaten up by Reigns and Uso and that WWE was doing it to protect him.

This idea was, however, shot down by The Big Dog Roman Reigns who felt it was unnecessary and would convolute the story.