News regarding why WWE announced Roman Reigns vs. Rey Mysterio for Smackdown

As previously noted, WWE announced that the Roman Reigns vs. Rey Mysterio Hell in a Cell match will be taking place on tonight’s Smackdown instead of the HIAC PPV.

While there has been speculation about this being a “bait and switch” tactic by WWE, Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com stated that “there’s no involved reason that made any sense” and wrote the following…

“The word we were told is that you can’t describe why, there were just a bunch of discussions on Thursday and the discussions ended up with ‘Let’s do it on Smackdown.'”

While plans could change, Meltzer added that Reigns is currently no longer expected to have a match on the PPV. With the HIAC match taking place on Smackdown, that opens the door for Rey Mysterio and Dominick to defend the Smackdown tag team titles at the PPV.

It’s also possible that the HIAC match being announced for Smackdown is a ratings ploy. Smackdown viewership on FOX has dipped in recent weeks with the show drawing under 2 million viewers since May 7th. Here are the viewership numbers for the last five episodes of Smackdown…

1,853,000
1,883,000
1,760,000
1,830,000
1,800,000

If the Roman Reigns vs. Rey Mysterio match takes place, it will be the first Hell in a Cell match to air on Smackdown. The last Hell in a Cell match to air on television was from the August 24th 1998 edition of WWE RAW when Kane faced Mankind.