Is Brock Lesnar Winning The WWE World Heavyweight Championship At SummerSlam?

The WWE hasn’t done a particularly good job masking its plans for SummerSlam. After leaking a revealing promotional poster as well as asking fans on its website who they’d like to see face Brock Lesnar on August 17, there wasn’t much room left for doubt.

We still don’t know who’ll face Lesnar for the gold, but whoever wins the championship ladder match is slated to defend against the conqueror of streaks. Roman Reigns and John Cena are the two favorites, with Cena edging out Reigns as the front-runner to claim the gold.

Reigns has momentum and is the hottest babyface on the roster right now. He gets more heat than anyone, and it’s usually an overwhelmingly positive reaction. Unlike Cena, who hears as many boos as cheers, Reigns seems to have captured the imagination of the collective WWE Universe. So why is Cena the front-runner?

Reigns isn’t ready yet. He hasn’t proven he can go out and wrestle long, main event singles matches on television or PPV. The fans may want him to win now, but sometimes (most of the time), the Universe doesn’t know what’s best for business.

If Lesnar does indeed challenge for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, he needs to win the match. Lesnar absolutely should not lose coming off his defeat of the Undertaker at WrestleMania XXX. If Reigns wins the title at Money in the Bank, it would mean he’d probably lose to Lesnar at SummerSlam, and Reigns shouldn’t be losing matches either.

If Reigns beats Lesnar at SummerSlam, they’d be throwing away a big-money WrestleMania main event for next year. The WWE would also run the risk of overexposing Reigns.

Booking Reigns as champion now is shortsighted. There’s far more money to be made in having him do a long chase for the belt, building to a mammoth showdown with Lesnar in Santa Clara. Just like Daniel Bryan, Roman’s moment of glory should be saved for the biggest show of the year.

Poll results show fans really want to see Lesnar and Reigns. As much as they want the match now, they’ll be thirsting that much more in seven months. This will also give Reigns enough time to settle in as a main event performer, preventing the possibility that he flops as world champion.

The best-case scenario has Cena winning the strap at Money in the Bank and losing it to Lesnar at SummerSlam. WWE showed with the Rock that they’re willing to put the title on part-timers, and if Lesnar is willing to work all the PPVs (and only the PPVs), he’ll probably win the belt. Anything less is improvident and a complete waste of time.

Dan Marsiglia is a Pro Wrestling columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter or add him to your network on Google. Read more here.