Business Motivations Behind CM Punk & Roman Reigns WWE Face-Off Revealed?

Roman Reigns vs. CM Punk is confirmed for WrestleMania 42 Night 2.

However, WWE had The OTC pick his choice of world champion for WrestleMania the night after Royal Rumble 2026. The premium live event is still months away, and usually, the Royal Rumble winners have a segment with every world champion before making their pick.

While one could argue that Roman Reigns picked Punk the very next night since there won’t be many appearances by him owing to his limited schedule, it still seems there could have been a segment between The OTC and Drew McIntyre before the decision was made.

Roman Reigns picking CM Punk on WWE RAW was a business decision

On The Coach and Bro, Jonathan Coachman broke down the situation. He claimed that the global juggernaut provided fans with one of the best segments in years to boost WrestleMania ticket sales. Currently, only half of each night has been sold out, and having Roman Reigns pick Punk on WWE RAW was more of a business decision than a creative decision.

The big question was, why do it the night after the Royal Rumble when you’ve got three months between then? So, what do you do?
How do you keep people excited when you give them the best promo we’ve seen, probably in years? Three months before they’re ever going to touch at WrestleMania. And I believe it’s because ticket sales are really lacking right now.

Both nights are only, Tommy, about half sold because it’s set up for about 65,000 tickets per night. And Tommy, right now night one is, or excuse me, night one’s right around 33 34, and night number two about the same amount of tickets. Do you think they decide to do that? Because you know, normally Wrestlemania sells, I mean real like 90% right out of the gate.

Ever since TKO acquired WWE, revenue and profits have been the top priority. In fact, fans had raised their concern over rising prices for tickets to premium live events.

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