AJ Styles did not appear on WWE Raw this week, ironically just a week after beating Greyson Waller on NXT and announcing the end of his brief NXT stint. WWE Raw did focus on Roman Reigns’ feud with Seth Rollins, and in airing a package to build Brock Lesnar vs. Bobby Lashley. WWE Superstar Roman Reigns is certainly one of the top competitors in the company right now and has been on a solid run as the WWE Universal Champion, but he is losing his top spot to two WWE Smackdown women. Roman Reigns successfully defended his WWE Universal Championship against WWE Hall Of Famer Edge and Daniel Bryan in a triple threat match in the main event of Night Two of WrestleMania 37. Roman Reigns might also be losing Paul Heyman eventually.
Roman Reigns also successfully retained his WWE Universal Championship against Cesaro in the main event of WrestleMania Backlash. Roman Reigns was scheduled to defend his WWE Universal Championship against Rey Mysterio at the WWE Hell In A Cell pay-per-view. However, that match was shifted to a previous episode of Friday Night Smackdown.
Roman Reigns would successfully defend his WWE Universal Championship against Rey Mysterio as well and went on to defeat Edge and John Cena in subsequent title matches at WWE Money In The Bank and WWE SummerSlam respectively. He then retained his title against Finn Balor at WWE Extreme Rules as well.
Roman Reigns was unable to compete at WWE Day 1 after testing positive for the virus, which led to Brock Lesnar winning the WWE Championship after defeating Big E and others at the pay-per-view. Despite this, WWE still has huge plans for Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar.
On the latest Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer revealed that the original plans for Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns’ feud had nothing to do with a title vs title stipulation.
“I was told no. That they just did it because those two guys had the belt at the time. So it made sense to do it at the time. But, at the time, that was not the direction that they were planning on…
Lesnar and Reigns are going to have a match. I think we’ll have a lot better idea of what’s gonna happen after the Royal Rumble. But, if Seth wins and then Lesnar’s wrestling Roman, I would presume Roman beats him to win a belt back. Because Lesnar’s not going to be around long-term and Roman will be around every week.
And then Rollins, I don’t know what their plans are as far as how long he would go long-term. They could have Big E beat him or they could just keep Seth going. They could have Lashley or… Kevin Owens. I mean there’s a lot of different ways they can go.”
h/t to Ringside News for the quotes
