Brock Lesnar left WWE Day 1 as the new WWE champion, but the plans at the start of the day were very different.
The Beast Incarnate was due to face Roman Reigns for the Universal title but on the day of the show, Reigns tested positive for COVID.
That afternoon, WWE decided to pivot by having Lesnar enter the WWE title match that was already a fatal-four-way between Big E, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens and Bobby Lashley.
As we know, Lesnar would end up winning that match and now he will face Bobby Lashely at the Royal Rumble while Seth Rollins will challenge Roman Reigns at the same event.
According to Dave Meltzer, Rollins was meant to win the WWE title match and Lesnar was meant to end Reigns’ near 500-day reign as Universal champion.
“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 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.”
Lesnar and Reigns will presumably continue their feud but with the WWE title. The original plans almost certainly involved Paul Heyman returning and helping Lesnar win as Lesnar’s advocate was suddenly back by his side on RAW two nights after the event with little explanation.
And that would have made sense given that Reigns fired Heyman as his Special Counsel shortly before.
That means Rollins will presumably take on the Royal Rumble winner. The bookmakers aren’t sure who it will be at the moment with Lesnar actually the favourite, but Big E is the second favourite and his journey back to the WWE title could be a good story.
WWE’s Day 1 plans didn’t work out, but with Lesnar and Reigns still their destination at WrestleMania, not too much has changed. The only issues is Rollins winning a title on the show he isn’t drafted too, but they can switch the titles to different brands easily if they want to.
Interesting to think about what WWE is going to do with Reigns and Lesnar, though. Lesnar is a hot babyface at the moment, but if he had used Heyman to beat Reigns, would a double turn of sorts happened?
Reigns is already being cheered by many fans despite being the proverbial bad guy, his time to turn to the good side is looming.
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