Paul Heyman Compares Roman Reigns And John Cena’s SummerSlam Showdown To Other Iconic WWE Matches

Paul Heyman says the match between Roman Reigns and John Cena needed to happen.

At WWE SummerSlam, Roman Reigns will defend his Universal Championship against John Cena. The 16-time World Champion got his spot in the match by signing a contract that was drawn for Finn Balor. Despite Paul Heyman’s assertion that the document was no longer valid, WWE Officials decided to just accept what happened and move forward. This will be Cena’s first televised match in front of an audience since January 14, 2019.

Appearing on a special pre-SummerSlam edition of The Bump, Paul Heyman commented on the magnitude of the match, comparing it to some of WWE’s most iconic showdowns. Here is what he had to say:

“Yes, bigger. Bigger than even a Wrestlemania. This is beyond a passing of the torch. This is a multi-generational showdown. The torch has already been passed. It was taken by Roman Reigns 51 weeks ago when he smashed two very capable champions and emerged as the Universal Heavyweight Champion and set a trajectory on SmackDown that no one could have predicted.

But this is a match that needs to happen. This is as big as The Rock and Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania. This is as big as Austin and Shawn Michaels. This is as big as Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. This is as big as Hogan and Andre, this is what we’re looking at right here. This is as close as we’re gonna get to Brock Lesnar conquering the streak.

This is John Cena, with multiple movies at number one, coming back, and my God, has he been welcomed back by the WWE Universe, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. The ticket sales and the ratings and the merchandise sales and every metric dictates [that] John Cena is a star, and he’s going to get smashed. He’s going to get squashed. He’s going to get beaten up, and he’s going to get either pinned or tapped out by the greatest of all time, by The Tribal Chief, by Roman Reigns.”

Fightful will have live coverage of SummerSlam today, August 21st, beginning at 4 p.m. PST. We will also have a post-show review immediately following the event’s conclusion.

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