WWE Rumors on Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins; Brock Lesnar and WrestleMania 38 Plans
January 10, 2022
You can reportedly expect at least one title to change hands at the 2022 Royal Rumble.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Radio said it's likely Seth Rollins will beat Roman Reigns for the Universal championship to help set up Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 38.
“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," Meltzer said. "So Lesnar is now the WWE champion. 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.”
Lesnar and Reigns were supposed to go head-to-head at the Day 1 event, but Reigns was scratched from their match after testing positive for COVID-19. WWE pivoted by adding Lesnar to the scheduled fatal four-way match for the WWE championship between Big E, Rollins, Kevin Owens and Bobby Lashley. Lesnar surprisingly went over and will take on Lashley at the Royal Rumble.
WWE inserted Rollins, a Raw superstar, into a match against Reigns at the Rumble on Friday's SmackDown.
The booking for the matches could go in any direction. A title vs. title match at WrestleMania would arguably create the biggest possible matchup, with the winner of Reigns vs. Lesnar moving on to take on the Royal Rumble winner on the second night of WrestleMania.
It appears that's not where things are headed now, but WWE's known to change their plans on a whim.
Listen to Ring Rust Radio for all of the hot wrestling topics. Catch the latest episode in the player below (warning: some language NSFW).