Kevin Nash believes that WWE decided to keep Roman Reigns as World Heavyweight Champion against LA Knight because of the release of Street Fighter.
During the Kliq This podcast, he presented a theory that links the result of the match at Money in the Bank to Reigns’ participation in the premiere of the film in Hollywood.
Reigns himself had already connected the two commitments. In an interview after his victory, he said that he would leave New Orleans directly for Los Angeles and described the match as a prerequisite to get to Monday’s premiere.
Nash praised the match and explained his interpretation.
“I thought LA Knight was great. I thought Roman was great. I thought there were some great false finishes. Come Monday, Street Fighter has its big premiere in Los Angeles … It’s Street Fighter. You’ve got Roman as one of the featured guys”
The premiere of Street Fighter took place on Oct. 12, only two days after Reigns’ victory. He was on the red carpet at the TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX in Hollywood.
Reigns plays Akuma in the production, which arrived in theaters on Oct. 16. As previously reported, Cody Rhodes also takes part in the film, in the role of Guile.
For Nash, WWE had a commercial reason to preserve the belt. He compared two ways of presenting Reigns to the Hollywood audience.
“Do you want the water cooler jargon to be, ‘Hey, that guy in the movie, he used to be the WWE champion up until Saturday when he got beat,’ or do you just say, ‘Hey, man, that’s the WWE champion’?”
The argument makes sense. Presenting Reigns as world champion at a film premiere offers WWE an opportunity to promote its main star outside the ring. This does not prove that the film determined the booking, but it helps to understand why a victory by LA Knight might not be the best commercial choice that weekend.
Nash also talked about the importance of opportunities like this one for wrestling professionals.
“This is one of those moments in life where we don’t get these moments as pro wrestlers very often, to be on a red carpet and to be a star and to be our champion”
“If you thought about it logically and had all this information at your fingertips, you could lay some money. Safe money that they’re probably going to want him to be the champ.”
Meanwhile, Reigns’ title reign continues. WWE has already announced his next commitment for Crown Jewel, on Nov. 7, when he will face Sami Zayn in a Champion vs. Champion Match.