A wrench was thrown into WWE’s plans last weekend when the company found out that Roman Reigns would not be able to wrestle at Day 1 but it looks like things well get back on track by the end of the month. During Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer indicated that the plan for WrestleMania was for Brock Lesnar to defend the Universal Championship against Roman Reigns.
Meltzer stated that the path to WrestleMania has changed but ultimately, according to what a source told him, they will get back on track to what they had in mind with Lesnar defending against Roman Reigns. That could mean that Lesnar will keep the WWE Championship after beating Bobby Lashley at the Royal Rumble and Reigns will drop the Universal Title to Seth Rollins. As previously noted, Rollins was initially supposed to win the Universal Championship at Day 1 and then defend it at WrestleMania. If Reigns loses to Rollins then it gets WWE back in the direction they wanted but with the titles swapped out. This was discussed on Wrestling Observer Radio.
Meltzer said, “The plan for Day 1 was that Seth was gonna be the WWE Champion coming off of the show and Lesnar was gonna be the Universal Champion coming off of the show. So Lesnar is now the WWE Champion so I’m wondering if they are just gonna go … Seth was going to defend the title on one of the WrestleMania nights and then Lesnar and Roman were gonna be for the other title on the other WrestleMania night. I was kind of told it’s gonna end up where it’s supposed to be. So I wonder if that means they’re gonna switch belts, like the Universal belt with Seth goes on Raw and the WWE belt that Roman would end up most likely, I’m gonna guess but Brock would have, would be on SmackDown. Which was not the plan but maybe how they end up recalibrating everything because of Roman missing the pay-per-view and them deciding to go with Brock to win the other title because Brock was gonna win the one title. I can’t say 100 percent that Brock was gonna win the other title, I mean I’m pretty sure. Seth I know 100 percent that was the plan (to win the WWE Championship). But Brock had to be winning over Roman [at Day 1] because it was the second match, Roman won the first [and] Heyman was gonna end up with Brock. I figured that Heyman was gonna screw Roman in the match but the match never happened and instead of waiting to do the match at the Royal Rumble, the decision was made that Paul has already been fired and we’re not gonna take him off TV so we’re gonna put him with Brock right away with no storyline, he’s just with Brock. I think that’s how it was gonna happen. I don’t know that it means Seth wins but it would make sense that would happen so that’s kind of something there.”
If they swap out the titles then it means that Seth Rollins would defend the WWE Universal Championship at Mania, likely against Lashley and/or Big E and then Lesnar will defend the WWE Championship against Reigns. This would explain why (aside from Drew McIntyre being injured) Rollins was picked to get the next title shot against Reigns.
Reigns hit the Superman punch on Lesnar on SmackDown so that could be what prompts Lesnar to interfere and cost Reigns the Universal Title at the Royal Rumble.
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