Roman Reigns Beats Brock Lesnar, Theory Fails MITB Cash In

Roman Reigns beat Brock Lesnar with the help of The Usos and a lot of furniture and production equipment at WWE SummerSlam 2022.

Theory’s Money in the Bank cash-in attempt was thwarted by Brock Lesnar after Theory tried to pull off a “heist of the century” with both Lesnar and Reigns laid out. Before Theory could even officially cash in, he took an F-5 onto the briefcase. After getting laid out by Reigns and Lesnar on TV throughout this build—and losing to Bobby Lashley—SummerSlam was another long night for what is supposed to be WWE’s next big thing.

With Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar having wrestled a handful of pay-per-view matches, perhaps WWE was out of ideas for its two top stars. Instead of coming face-to-face, which rarely happened throughout this build, WWE instead used Money in the Bank winner Austin Theory as a conduit for this feud.

Unfortunately for Theory, he took turns taking beatings from both Reigns and Lesnar, both in the ring and on the microphone. This past Monday on Raw, Reigns made a reference to Vince McMahon’s retirement by telling Theory: “your daddy’s not here any more.” This prompted a huge pop from Madison Square Garden, followed by chants of “who’s your daddy?” This all built up to Theory failing to even cash in despite weeks of promises that he would.

WWE has insisted that this match was the last iteration of the Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar saga, however Brock Lesnar is WWE’s ultimate emergency glass case wrestler, and the promotion is wont to bring him back at a moment’s notice, especially when they need distractions from PR scandals. Lesnar’s latest return came on the same day it was announced that Vince McMahon had stepped down as Chairman and CEO of WWE.

With Triple H in charge, and WWE desperate for new stars, perhaps the days of Brock vs. Roman really are behind WWE. Triple H’s vision, while it will have similarities to that of Vince McMahon, should also lead to fresher faces getting real opportunities to succeed at the top of WWE.

SummerSlam’s opening match gave way to a tone-setting return by Bayley, Io Shirai and, most surprisingly, Dakota Kai. This was clearly a message from Triple H that WWE is under new management, and those who have failed to impress the eternally particular Vince McMahon have a new lease on life. Just like Triple H himself.