A number of weeks ago, it was reported that there have been serious talks in WWE about having Randy Orton defeat Drew McIntyre for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam. The thinking is that the Scottish Superstar could then win them back at the Royal Rumble or WrestleMania so he gets that big victory in front of tens of thousands of fans.
Time will tell on that front, but during the latest Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez speculated that Orton attacking Ric Flair during RAW may have been a swerve for the WWE Hall of Famer to make a surprise return at the PPV and help The Viper win the title.
As he notes, we never saw Orton actually punt Flair as the lights went out at that exact moment, something we were obviously meant to think was down to WWE troublemakers Retribution. Bear in mind that we saw Orton deliver a punt to Christian a number of weeks ago (who also isn't cleared to take bumps), so there's no reason he couldn't have been trusted with Flair's safety.
The tag line for SummerSlam is, believe it or not, "You'll Never See It Coming," so it seems as if WWE does have some big surprises in store. However, if Flair's return to help Orton defeat McIntyre is one of them, then it seems it won't be as shocking as the company probably thinks...