Backstage News On Roman Reigns Missing Raw This Week

Intercontinental Champion Roman Reigns was absent from this week’s episode of Monday Night Raw in Providence, Rhode Island and he missed the weekend house shows as well.

On the post-Raw edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer revealed some news on Reigns’ unexplained absence.

According to Meltzer, the decision to keep him away from these shows weren’t made by WWE. Rather, Reigns requested the leave of absence.

He asked for the leave of advance a few weeks ago and it was granted by WWE officials. This would explain why Reigns wasn’t advertised for Raw.

Meltzer wouldn’t say why the Intercontinental Champion took time off.

Since Raw will be live on Christmas Day this year and Reigns will be working that night, as well as house shows on consecutive days from Dec. 26 through Dec. 30, and then Raw on Jan. 1, 2018, it’s likely that he simply wanted to spend some time with his family before the holidays.