general | March 28, 2026

John Cena Hijacks Universal Title Contract Signing, Will Face Roman Reigns At SummerSlam

Roman Reigns will officially defend his WWE Universal Championship against John Cena at SummerSlam after Cena signed the contract that was originally intended for Finn Balor on the most recent installment of SmackDown on FOX.

The show opened with Cena cutting a promo on Reigns and responding to comments made by Reigns on last week's SmackDown. Cena claimed that Reigns is just a scared little kid who fears failure and is afraid to fight Cena because of how Cena would make him look.

Cena was just wrapping up his promo when Baron Corbin interrupted. Since losing his crown to Shinsuke Nakamura a few weeks ago, Corbin had become a self-pitying mess with no dignity who asks everyone he sees for money, and Hollywood movie star John Cena was no exception. Cena only had a few bucks on him, which annoyed Corbin. Corbin called Cena a sellout, and Cena hit him with an Attitude Adjustment in return.

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Later in the show, a contract signing took place. The signing was meant to set up the SummerSlam Universal title match between Finn Balor and defending champion Roman Reigns, but things didn't quite go according to plan. Balor and Reigns took their seats at the table (Reigns sat at the head of the table, obviously) in the ring, and Reigns attempted to intimidate Balor.

"If you sign this contract, I'm going to SMASH you and send you right back to NXT," Reigns said. But Balor was undeterred by Roman's trash talk. As the first-ever Univeral Champion was about to put pen-to-paper, he was ambushed from behind by Baron Corbin.

Corbin took Balor out the equation, and his intentions became clear when he picked up the contract and went to sign it himself, presumably under the assumption that a match with Roman Reigns would put an end to his financial woes. Unfortunately for Corbin, John Cena arrived in the nick of time Cena ejected Corbin from the ring and signed the contract himself.

Obviously, that's not how contracts work. But later in the night, WWE official Adam Pearce rejected Paul Heyman's protests and officially confirmed that John Cena would face Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship at SummerSlam 2021 in Las Vegas on August 24.

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