In his absence, WWE has created more new stars, so the need for him to return to beef up the main event has not been necessary. The emergence of Gunther, Jey Uso, Drew McIntyre, Solo SIkoa, Jacob Fatu, LA Knight, and more have made it so that management does not have to go back to the well and lean on the same guy to enhance match cards.

Everyone in his Bloodline circle has been in an abusive relationship with Reigns at one point over the past five years. It’s what finally drove Paul Heyman to go from the first person to join Reigns to the last person to break their loyalty to him during SmackDown on Friday.