On Monday afternoon, WWE announced that former world champion Roman Reigns had been suspended for 30 days following his first Wellness Policy violation. Following that news breaking, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer appeared on a special breaking news edition of Wrestling Observer Radio to elaborate on the suspension and exactly when WWE knew that Reigns would be facing a suspension.
Notably, Meltzer revealed that WWE had knowledge of the suspension prior to Reigns’ world title match at Sunday’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view – where he lost the title to Seth Rollins, who then lost the same title to Dean Ambrose, who cashed in the Money in the Bank briefcase he had won earlier in the evening.
“They knew the test result in advance of the pay-per-view, yes,” said Meltzer. “I don’t know as a fact what they’re going to do for Battleground … They knew Sunday and Monday that there was this [Wellness violation] happening.”
Meltzer went on to say that he believes this particular suspension would seem to shed some light on the belief among fans and critics that certain wrestlers are shielded from the Wellness Policy, because other than John Cena, there is currently no bigger star in WWE than Reigns.
During Monday night’s episode of RAW, Reigns and Rollins competed in the main event before both men were placed into a triple threat match for Ambrose’s WWE World Heavyweight Championship at Battleground on July 24 … which will be a few days after Reigns’ 30-day suspension is up.
