The Universal Championship reign of Brock Lesnar started at WrestleMania 33 when he defeated Bill Goldberg in an entertaining match that put an end to their rivalry. As we reported way back in March of this year before WrestleMania, WWE’s long-term plan is Brock Lesnar defending the Universal Title against Roman Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania 34, with Reigns beating Lesnar to win the title.
Since Lesnar’s Universal Championship reign began, he has beaten top Raw stars like Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman in singles matches. Lesnar also beat Joe, Strowman and Reigns in an awesome Fatal 4-Way at SummerSlam where Lesnar pinned Reigns, but don’t expect WWE to remind you of that. Lesnar also beat AJ Styles at Survivor Series this past weekend in an instant classic.
There are no more Raw-branded PPVs this year, and the next time Raw talent is on pay-per-view is January 28 at the Royal Rumble in Philadelphia, which is when Lesnar will wrestle on television again.
The next man up on the Raw brand to face Lesnar for the Universal Championship was supposed to be Finn Bálor. That was the plan for several months, yet Dave Meltzer reported on his Wrestling Observer radio show that it’s not happening now. Here’s how Meltzer explained it:
“What I was told is that the official change was actually [Monday] morning, but it was talked about on Sunday. Vince McMahon felt that Finn Bálor wasn’t over enough. I mean, [Vince] probably decided before because of how the Survivor Series match was laid out. Bálor wasn’t put in that match to shine.”
It’s so weird to hear that and wonder what went through Vince’s mind when he came to that conclusion. On the October 23 edition of Raw, Bálor faced Kane in a singles match on Raw and got his ass kicked. Kane beat him in dominant fashion. How can Vince say Bálor isn’t over enough when the crowd clearly loves the guy, yet WWE books him to be a loser? It’s bizarre to think that WWE really wanted Bálor in the Rumble match against Lesnar and then they booked him so badly against Kane, of all people. And still, Bálor, the first Universal Champion, has yet to be granted a match for the title he never lost.
The subject of Braun Strowman possibly challenging Brock Lesnar at the Royal Rumble came up. Lesnar already beat Strowman at No Mercy in September, but WWE could go back to that match again. Meltzer explained the problem with doing Lesnar vs. Strowman.
“The problem with Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman is this: they’ve already done the match once and had a clean finish. Vince doesn’t want anybody kicking out of the F5 until WrestleMania, obviously. They’ve built this thing up forever. So Brock Lesnar beating Braun Strowman at Royal Rumble with an F5 has already been done, and it’s not going to help Strowman to lose that match no matter how they work the match, plus the first match wasn’t very good. They don’t want to hurt Strowman and they don’t want to put the title on Strowman since they have built up to Lesnar vs. Reigns [at WrestleMania].”
Meltzer summarized where we’re at right now: “We are left with a situation where they are scrambling for a match because they decided the match they wanted to do, they aren’t doing anymore. So it’s up in the air.”
If they aren’t going to go with Bálor, perhaps WWE will try to rehab Bray Wyatt enough to put him in the spot as a guy that Lesnar can beat at the Royal Rumble. Or perhaps Samoa Joe again, because he’s a credible opponent. Lesnar beat him already at Great Balls of Fire, but they could always go to the match again.
For now, we don’t know who Lesnar is facing at the Royal Rumble. The good thing for WWE is they have over two months to figure it out.
