Wrestling fans had quite the shock when Brock Lesnar emerged victorious from the multi-man match for the Universal title at Day 1, especially considering he was a last-minute addition to the card following Roman Reigns’ positive COVID diagnosis. Now, Lesnar’s will take on Bobby Lashley for the title at the upcoming Royal Rumble, which has likely caused some fans to wonder what's happened to his feud with Reigns. And, perhaps more importantly, will the WWE’s clutch audible call impact the presumed plan of Lesnar and Reigns facing off in the main event of WrestleMania 38?
It seems like things are up in the air right now, though Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio (via Wrestletalk) recently shared how much Brock Lesnar’s WWE title win will reportedly impact WrestleMania 38. He also talked about the months ahead and how the original plans may not be changing up as much as fans may think.
Drew (McIntyre) will find out, I presume, this week how serious it is. He would be the guy (most likely to face Reigns at Royal Rumble), but he may not be available. I know that they’ve got everything worked out between now and WrestleMania. Everything is worked out. All the original plans, there were some changes obviously because the Lesnar and Roman Reigns match from Saturday didn’t happen, but they’ve got their new twists and turns, and the final destination, which is presumably Lesnar and Roman Reigns, is still on.
Even though Brock Lesnar win the title in a match he wasn’t involved in mere hours beforehand, the main plans for WrestleMania 38 are still basically on. As far as what might happen beyond that, though, we can only speculate. Brock Lesnar holding the WWE Championship to start off 2022 apparently didn’t cause a massive shakeup in creative plans, and presumably won’t be a major issue when WrestleMania rolls around. (Barring any future positive COVID tests, of course.)
The real question is, though, if Brock Lesnar is set to face Roman Reigns like many believe, will he do so as the WWE champion? The decision could presumably set up an undisputed title match, assuming Roman Reigns still has the Universal title at the time of WrestleMania 38. A match with two belts on the line would create high stakes, but would also remove a key headline event and rob some of the audience of the two-night event of a match featuring one of the biggest titles. Meltzer didn’t know any specifics on what’s happening with the upcoming WWE Championship match.
Whatever the plan was for the WWE Championship match – I don’t know what it was – but they’re gonna get there, and that’s also still on. So the WrestleMania matches are the same, but the plans on how to get there obviously have changed.
Based on the combination of Meltzer's above comment, the presumed change in plans for Day 1, and the fact that WrestleMania 38 is a two-night affair, I think that Brock Lesnar will lose the WWE Championship before WrestleMania. After all, he’s the biggest draw aside from Roman Reigns in the WWE right now, and the company didn’t spend months building this feud just to let it casually go away right before their biggest PPV event.
Dave Meltzer also wrote in Sports Illustrated that Big E was originally booked to lose the championship title anyway. Seth Rollins was originally set to get the win, though, and not Brock Lesnar. If true, this leads me to believe Lesnar may drop the title ahead of WrestleMania, and whoever was originally booked for that WWE title match will proceed to get that planned match.
Of course, there then comes the question of who will hold the WWE Championship going into WrestleMania, presuming it's not Lesnar, and who they may face in one of the biggest matches of the night. Truthfully, it may not even be worth speculating at this stage, especially if Roman Reigns’ isn’t the last wrestler on the roster to miss a match due to a COVID diagnosis. As Day 1 showed, anything can change in an instant, so don’t be surprised if plans change once more in the coming weeks.
WrestleMania 38 will stream on Peacock on Saturday, April 2nd, and Sunday, April 3rd. It will be interesting to watch Brock Lesnar’s title reign in the coming weeks and how the WWE may handle his title loss should that be the go-ahead plan before WrestleMania.
