WWE Rumor Roundup - 5-time Champion returning after 9 years, Update on a couple's breakup, Shots fired at Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins, and more - September 20th 2020

#1. Backstage news on WWE's plans for Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman

Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman's alliance is the coolest thing on SmackDown, and a majority of the fans will agree to that. Well, one of the coolest things if you take into consideration the Bayley-Banks storyline and Alexa Bliss' character transformation on WWE SmackDown.

Dave Meltzer revealed in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the idea is to make Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman's dynamic different from Lesnar and Heyman's pairing in WWE.

Beyond their Superstar-manager pairing, Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar were considered to be friends, and it was a believable aspect of their angle as they knew each other for a very long time.

That isn't the case with Heyman and Reigns. This one's a business relationship, and Roman Reigns is the one calling the shots. Paul Heyman was done with wrestling with Brock Lesnar being out of action and Roman Reigns 'made the call to get him back'. In storyline, Heyman is indebted to Reigns for saving his WWE career.

Meltzer also noted that there would be unique catchphrases being used to make the alliance different from what we've seen on WWE TV.

Meltzer noted the following in the Newsletter:

The plans are to make the Reigns/Heyman dynamic as different as possible from Lesnar/Heyman. The idea is that everyone knew that while Lesnar was a mercenary, he was also friends with Heyman. He smiled at his promos, laughed at his jokes, and long-time fans knew the relationship dated back to Lesnar's start on the main roster in 2002. With Reigns it is the opposite. There is no friendship. The idea is that with Reigns, he is completely in charge of the relationship and that, at least in idea, Heyman was done in wrestling with Lesnar gone and had nothing left. Reigns made the call to bring him back so he's indebted to Reigns for saving his career. There will be catch phrases such as "Reignsing, defending, undisputed champion" and there will be a designation of him as the Special Counsel and Reigns will be the Tribal Chief, as a takeoff on Peter Maivia's role in Samoan culture in the 70s