Randy Orton is set to be Roman Reigns’ next opponent for the Undisputed WWE Universal Title.
Orton “joined” the SmackDown brand on Friday’s episode, following his return at last week’s Survivor Series, where he worked the Men’s WarGames Match, his first bout in over a year due to back fusion surgery.
Orton was reportedly considered as a possible opponent for Reigns at the Royal Rumble on Saturday, January 27, 2024, from Tampa, FL, at Tropicana Field. WWE began preparing for that match on Friday’s SmackDown with Orton laying out members of The Bloodline.
Orton and Reigns have only worked one PPV/PLE match together. In fact, CageMatch.net notes that they’ve only worked two singles matches together, one on a 2014 episode of WWE Raw and the other at SummerSlam that same year.
Reigns defeated Orton in both matches, with the first ending in a DQ and the second ending cleanly at SummerSlam. Over the years, they’ve worked numerous tag team and multi-man matches. The last time they shared the ring was at Backlash in May 2022 for a six-man tag team match against The Bloodline.
