Brock Lesnar is the WWE Universal Champion. (WWE.com)
A few weeks ahead of Monday Night Raw‘s next pay-per-view, there are now some new spoilers about the company’s plans for the Universal Championship.
According to the Wrestling Observer this week, the original plan was for Braun Strowman to face Roman Reigns at Extreme Rules, and then for Braun Strowman to face Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at Great Balls of Fire. It has been confirmed that Great Balls of Fire in July will be Brock Lesnar’s first Universal Championship title defense.
However, the WWE is now re-evaluating all of these plans, as Braun Strowman has been legitimately injured and could miss the next two pay-per-views. So if Strowman can’t make it back by Great Balls of Fire, who will Brock Lesnar face in July?
One might assume Roman Reigns, but the WWE is reportedly planning for Reigns to go up against Lesnar at WrestleMania 34 in 2018, and so we won’t see that match take place this summer. Instead, the Wrestling Observer reports that the two most likely opponents for Lesnar would be Seth Rollins or Finn Balor. A Balor feud with Lesnar would make a lot of sense, as Balor was forced to vacate the Universal Championship in August 2016 due to injury, but he never actually lost it. Balor has also declared his intention to fight Brock Lesnar on recent episodes of Monday Night Raw.
With Braun Strowman’s current injury, it is believed that he will be back in action by SummerSlam at the latest, and so the Strowman vs. Lesnar match for the Universal Championship match will likely take place then.
So where does that leave Roman Reigns? The thinking is that Reigns will likely feud with Bray Wyatt next. After all, Wyatt clearly started a feud with Finn Balor a few weeks ago, but that seems to have been completely dropped, leaving Wyatt’s storyline wide open. The Wrestling Observer reports that for live events going forward, Bray Wyatt will be fighting against Roman Reigns, whereas Wyatt was previously going to fight against Finn Balor. Also, at recent live events, the main event has been Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt and Samoa Joe.
These plans do largely depend on how long Braun Strowman is taken out of action, and so we’ll get a better sense of the WWE’s summer plans after Strowman undergoes his upcoming surgery.
To summarize, the long-term plan is reportedly for Roman Reigns to fight Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 34, with the hook of that match being that the two people to beat The Undertaker at WrestleMania will go head to head. Until then, Brock Lesnar will have a title defense at Great Balls of Fire, and assuming Strowman can’t make it back by then, that will likely be against Finn Balor or Seth Rollins. Then, at SummerSlam, Brock Lesnar will go up against Braun Strowman, with the obvious implication being that Lesnar will defeat Strowman and hold on to the championship until next April for WrestleMania so that he can lose to Roman Reigns.