It’s a new year and we’re now on the road to WWE’s biggest premium live event of the year, WrestleMania.
Earlier this month, WWE presented the inaugural Day 1 event from Atlanta, GA. That show was thrown into disarray when it was announced that Roman Reigns contracted COVID-19 and would be unable to defend the Universal Championship against Brock Lesnar in the main event. Lesnar was added to the WWE Championship match and surprised everyone by ending Big E’s reign and walking out as champion.
According to the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the original plans for the WWE title match at Day 1 were for Seth Rollins to win the fatal four-way match and walk out as the champion. Dave Meltzer noted that the original plan was for the Architect to win the bout and defend the title at WrestleMania 38:
“The plan for that was originally Seth Rollins, likely against the winner of the Royal Rumble, with Big E the favorite, but Kevin Owens and Bobby Lashley were also possibilities.”
WrestleMania 38
WWE still seems to be building towards a Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns match for WrestleMania, but the belief is that it won’t be a champion vs champion bout.
Meltzer added that the planned WWE championship match for the Show of Shows could still take place with the company taking a different direction to achieve that.
For those who don’t know, Brock Lesnar was originally scheduled to challenge Roman Reigns for the Universal championship at Day 1. Big E was supposed to defend his WWE title in a fatal four-way.
Reigns ended up missing the event after testing positive for COVID. Lesnar was then added to the WWE championship match, and he walked out of the arena as the new champion.
