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#1. Paul Heyman was booked in a match against Adam Pearce; Kevin Owens dominated Roman Reigns on WWE SmackDown
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Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman not only mocked WWE official Adam Pearce's last-minute move to back out from a match against The Tribal Chief, but they also successfully baited him into a trap during this week's main event.
Pearce, Reigns, and Heyman's opening segment got to a point where Pearce disrespected Heyman. This led to an unexpected direction where Pearce vs. Heyman was booked in the main event, thanks to The Tribal Chief urging Heyman to defend his honor.
There was also a backstage moment between The Tribal Chief and his special counsel, where Reigns and Heyman pretended to be on different sides of the situation. It became a little predictable that Heyman would back out from the main event by using Pearce's own 'card subject to change' strategy, but the backstage segment implied that Reigns wanted Heyman to fight his own battles.
Heyman faked an injury before the main event could begin, and Roman Reigns arrived to beat up Adam Pearce. Another plot thread running through this week's WWE SmackDown was that Reigns had pulled backstage strings to keep Kevin Owens out of the building.
However, that strategy did not work effectively as The Prizefighter managed to sneak in anyway. Owens hit multiple stunners on the Universal Champion and put him through the commentary table at the end of this week's WWE SmackDown.
This storyline has somewhat shifted in Owens' favor on the Road to Royal Rumble 2021. But that is only because The Prizefighter had to be portrayed as the more dominant character at some point after so many encounters with Reigns. Moreover, Jey Uso was not present by Roman's side this week for some reason.
The result of Owens vs. Reigns at the Royal Rumble event remains predictable, but it doesn't mean that the storyline has run out of steam to a huge extent. The Prizefighter and The Tribal Chief's feud has been thoroughly consistent in terms of acting performances and the matches. How will Roman Reigns retaliate against his nemesis on next week's WWE SmackDown before Royal Rumble?
Do catch SK Wrestling experts Rick Ucchino and Denise Salcedo as they share their thoughts on all that went down during last night's WWE SmackDown in the video linked above.
