As noted, there was no sign of Roman Reigns during Friday night's episode of SmackDown. It's rare for the Head of the Table not to appear on the blue brand, though the show did heavily feature Brock Lesnar instead. That made up for the lack of star power and furthered the storyline between the two men before they square off at Day 1 on January 1.
According to Ringside News, the reason Reigns was missing from SmackDown was that he was taking a planned vacation WWE had known about for at least a couple of months.
This likely explains why plans for Lesnar changed as he was originally going to return during this show at ringside after buying a ticket. Without Reigns on hand, it made far more sense to bring him back last week and have him target Sami Zayn as part of the build to the upcoming PPV.
Without Reigns there, WWE was able to build the storyline between Lesnar and Paul Heyman, once again teasing that The Beast's former advocate is secretly loyal to his old client. However, it was recently reported that the plan is still to have the whole thing conclude at WrestleMania next year.
As always, keep checking back here for updates as we have them!