Roman Reigns was not featured on this past Friday’s episode of SmackDown in Los Angeles, CA to continue his storyline with Brock Lesnar.
Paul Heyman stated in a storyline on the show that Reigns was on the Island of Samoa training for the upcoming match against Lesnar at the Day 1 pay-per-view event on January 1st. With “The Big Dog” not on the show, Lesnar was heavily featured in the first hour as he did a segment with Sami Zayn.
RingsideNews reports that the reason why the Universal Champion wasn’t at the show comes down to him taking a planned vacation, which WWE knew about for at least two months.
Reigns is expected to be at next Friday’s episode of SmackDown from Chicago, IL. At this show, WWE will air a live episode of SmackDown before taping the Christmas Eve edition as well.
