Predicting When Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar and Logan Paul Will Wrestle Again in 2023
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Exiting the 2023 edition of SummerSlam, one major pro wrestling question comes into focus on the WWE side.
What happens next to Logan Paul, Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns?
It’s understandable for fans to wonder if all three have entered the hiatus zone. They were centerpieces of the second-biggest event of the year and typically, the calendar fades for a while before things begin to ramp back up near the start of WrestleMania season.
Considering WrestleMania XL doesn’t arrive until April 2024, it’s even fair to wonder if fans will see the three at all for the remainder of 2023 in an actual match. It’s an interesting idea for many reasons, chief among them the fact Reigns remains an undisputed champion and whether the momentum of the Bloodline and others involved could survive for so long.
Here’s a breakdown of each Superstar’s outlook and a prediction as to whether each actually wrestles a match between now and 2024.
Logan Paul
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For a second there, it looked like Logan Paul was headed for a must-see feud against LA Knight at SummerSlam.
What fans got instead was a nice little feud with Ricochet and a predictably amazing match between two of the best athletes and in-ring entertainers on the roster. What it also accomplished was suggesting that WWE won’t exclusively use Paul in only very high-profile matches against opponents with mainstream appeal.
While it’s not easy to predict who Paul might face, it is pretty simple to see where WWE might use him next. He’s only been used at the biggest events, which would seem to rule out the upcoming PLEs: Payback, No Mercy, Fastlane, Survivor Series.
But in July, Brandon Thurston at Wrestlenomics (h/t Fightful’s Jeremy Lambert) reported WWE will hold its second 2023 event in Saudi Arabia in November. The company has yet to announce this officially, but two Saudi shows is the norm in non-Covid years.
This meshes nicely with Paul’s upcoming boxing match on Oct. 14 in Manchester, England. Paul has already returned from an injury earlier than expected and shown he can easily juggle non-wrestling things alongside major WWE shows just fine, so his getting a match at a marquee international show before 2023 ends seems a given.
Prediction: Paul wrestles at upcoming Saudi Arabia event
Brock Lesnar
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At SummerSlam, Brock Lesnar put what felt like a very final stamp on the long-running feud with Cody Rhodes by taking a loss to lose the series, then raising his opponent’s hand after the match as an endorsement.
That would appear to mean Lesnar is on to something new, if anything at all, while Rhodes eventually slides back into Roman Reigns’ orbit closer to WrestleMania season.
In the past, it would be easy to handwave Lesnar’s future appearance as obvious—he’ll show up just before the reported Saudi show in November to start a feud and have a match there. WWE consistently uses him at these events, to the point he fought Bobby Lashley in November 2022 at Crown Jewel.
But this year feels quite different. The Rhodes feud is over and Reigns will deal with him and family as the Bloodline continues. World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins makes for an obvious feud, but that might be better reserved for a surprise Lesnar return near WrestleMania for a main-event program.
That doesn’t leave a lot of obvious things for Lesnar to do unless they want to throw him at Intercontinental champion Gunther. But the surprise ‘Mania return will feel more impactful the longer the hiatus stretches and a Saudi show doesn’t need his star power given the talent of the roster.
Prediction: Lesnar doesn’t wrestle until 2024 ‘Mania
Roman Reigns
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There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to Reigns.
For one, he apparently suffered an undisclosed injury during his title match against Jey Uso at SummerSlam, according to Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio (h/t Felix Upton of Ringside News). If he needs to miss time from in-ring wrestling, that throws a wrench in any potential PLE fights.
Two, the storyline doesn’t really require any major title defenses between now and the end of 2023. That might sound a bit wild, but Jimmy Uso betraying Jey at the end of SummerSlam sets up a twin-based feud. That’s one that could stretch all the way until the next ‘Mania, where it would rightfully have a big payoff.
Sticking with the Bloodline, that leaves some element of a possible Paul Heyman and or Solo Sikoa betrayal as a centerpiece of the storytelling. Maybe they work toward Reigns-Sikoa for the title, but this has been a slow burn—tag matches might be the way to go.
Otherwise, WWE isn’t going to spoil the possible ‘Mania rematch of Rhodes-Reigns anytime soon. And the decision-makers also won’t throw the Tribal Chief into a random feud for the sake of getting the title on a PLE card when they went out of their way to create Rollins’ title out of thin air to even things out and buy time.
In other words, it would be shocking to see Reigns fight at something like Payback or Fastlane. Maybe WWE squeaks in a title defense at the reported Saudi show before the end of the year. But the best bet is Reigns features in a non-title tag match ripe with Bloodline drama or even a fatal four-way at Survivor Series in late November.
Prediction: Reigns wrestles a multi-man match at Survivor Series, but no title defense until 2024.
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