Brock Lesnar is the current WWE Universal Champion. (WWE.com)
In just a few weeks, Brock Lesnar will defend his Universal Championship for the first time at WWE’s Great Balls of Fire, but we’re now learning some more information about the reported plan for the title for the remainder of this year.
For months now, the Wrestling Observer has been reporting that the long-term plan is for Brock Lesnar to face Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 34 next year.
“The plan is to once again build for a year and have the big coronation at WrestleMania,” Dave Meltzer reported for the Wrestling Observer back in March. “The idea between now and then is for Reigns…to fully replace John Cena as the lead babyface of the company.”
Now, Cageside Seats is reporting a rumor this week that this Reigns/Lesnar match is still the plan for WrestleMania 34 and that until then, Lesnar will only be defending the title a handful of times. After Samoa Joe, his competitors will reportedly be Braun Strowman, Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, and finally Roman Reigns at WrestleMania.
The rumor is that Braun Strowman will face Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at SummerSlam this August. Strowman is currently sidelined due to a legitimate injury, but he’s expected to make it back in time for SummerSlam. A Lesnar and Strowman feud has already been teased, with the two confronting each other on the Raw after WrestleMania, but Strowman’s injury forced the company to put off that match for a bit longer than expected.
A Finn Balor feud with Brock Lesnar would also make sense, as Balor never actually lost the Universal Championship; he merely had to vacate the title due to injury. In fact, Paul Heyman recently made clear on Monday Night Raw that Balor was Lesnar’s preferred opponent at Great Balls of Fire.
Based on this new rumor, it sounds like fans should not expect Lesnar’s appearances on WWE programming to much more frequent than they have been, although he will likely be defending his title at two back-to-back pay-per-views, Great Balls of Fire and SummerSlam, in July and August.
Great Balls of Fire, the WWE pay-per-view featuring a match against Brock Lesnar and Samoa Joe, will air on July 9th, 2017.