We recently reported that “The Beast” Brock Lesnar has two further matches scheduled in the future, with one of them pitting him against SmackDown’s WWE champion, AJ Styles. This is due to Lesnar’s victory over Braun Strowman at WWE’s recent Crown Jewel event, where he became the first ever two time WWE Universal Champion.
Turns out, this wasn’t the plan that the WWE had heading into Crown Jewel, at all.
Apparently, the plans for the event would have seen then Universal Champion, Roman Reigns, retain the belt in the originally scheduled triple threat against both Brock Lesnar and Braun Strowman.
This matchup would have coincided with Brock Lesnar’s last contractual match, leaving him free to train for his rumored UFC return against Daniel Cormier for the UFC Heavyweight Championship.
However, Reigns would reveal on RAW a few weeks earlier that he was sadly once again battling leukaemia. This revelation led him to relinquish the title, turning the triple threat into a one-on-one contest.
It also forced the WWE into a major rewrite that saw Brock reassert his place as the Universal Champion.
“Reigns Was Going To Win That Match”
According to Dave Meltzer, “The deal was, when Roman went down, Vince backed up the Brinks truck and felt with Roman gone they needed Brock. Brock’s last date was gonna be Crown Jewel. Roman Reigns was gonna win that match.”
Brock, if nothing else, is a consummate businessman, as evidenced by his ability to further leverage his personal stock between both the WWE and the UFC.
We now live in a world where the UFC’s ‘Champ-Champ’ Daniel Cormier is telling Lesnar to “bring that belt [to the UFC]” because he feels like “being a WWE Champion, too” in the build-up to their supposed confrontation in the Octagon.
Crazy thing is, depending on how Vince McMahon wants to play it, seeing the WWE Universal Championship appear on a future UFC PPV could become an actual reality.
What do you think? Would you want to see the Universal Championship at UFC? Think it’s possible?
