Well, we guessed this one was coming. All of us guessed it. Literally everyone. Not initially, of course. Only after the main event of Monday night’s WWE Raw.
Okay, let me back up! Brock Lesnar’s Royal Rumble opponent for his WWE Universal Championship match in January has apparently been something of a moving target. Basically, everyone knows Lesnar is holding the title until WrestleMania 34, when he will face Roman Reigns. It’s just a matter of getting to that match, and since Lesnar has already beaten challengers like Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman, there’s not much left to go around … especially since his originally-planned opponent, Finn Bálor, was supposedly deemed entirely “not Kane” enough to challenge for Lesnar’s title.
So when Braun Strowman and Kane faced off on Monday, with the winner getting a shot at Lesnar at the Rumble, we didn’t get a winner! I love it when a plan comes together.
When the double count-out happened to end the match, basically everyone watching who had previously seen pro wrestling assumed that this likely meant we would get a Triple Threat match for the WWE Universal Championship at the Royal Rumble. We don’t have to wait until next week to confirm that, apparently, as Dave Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio that this is the current plan.
“Just so everyone knows: it is a three-way. It is Brock Lesnar, Kane, and Strowman. They didn’t announce it. When the show was over, that was certainly the implication you would get. That is Vince McMahon’s call, that was the decision that he made. There were a bunch of different things pitched …
“So that is the plan, unless Vince changes his mind again. I don’t think he’s going to, given what they did, but this would be my speculation. Because the whole thing of Brock Lesnar and Braun Strowman, why he didn’t want to do it, was because he didn’t feel this is the time to beat Braun Strowman, and he’s not going to beat Brock Lesnar, for obvious reasons. Nor should he. And he really shouldn’t be beating Strowman, either. He’s beaten Strowman once; he doesn’t want to do it again.”
Of course, there’s always time for WWE to reverse course yet again. Heck, with them being so multi-person-match crazy at the moment (just check out the Clash of Champions card), maybe we’ll even get Bálor added back in and have a Fatal 4-Way.
(We probably won’t.)
