Roman Reigns WWE Title Status “Complex”
Roman Reigns has been holding the WWE and Universal Titles simultaneously since WrestleMania 38, but it’s possible The Tribal Chief could drop one of them according to a new report.
The Universal Title has been held by Roman Reigns since an August 30, 2020 event called Payback where Reigns won the championship in a match involving “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman. For over 700 days, nobody has been able to beat Reigns for the championship.
At WrestleMania 38 this past April, WWE decided to put the Universal Champion Reigns in a match against the WWE Champion Brock Lesnar to unify the titles. Reigns won that match against Lesnar to become the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion. At SummerSlam, Reigns beat Lesnar again in the Last Man Standing Match thanks to some help from The Usos. That match likely put an end to that Reigns-Lesnar rivalry.
It could be argued that Reigns just overcame his biggest obstacle at the Clash at the Castle event in Wales where 60,000+ fans were ready for the UK’s own Drew McIntyre to beat Reigns. Instead, after Drew hit a Claymore Kick and covered for the win, Roman’s cousin (and younger brother of The Usos) Solo Sikoa pulled the referee out of the ring to stop the count. Solo snapped Drew’s neck into the top rope and Reigns hit a Spear for the pinfall win. It wasn’t clean like many of Roman’s title defenses, but Reigns found a way to win again.
When Reigns became the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion it was the now-retired WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon calling the shots. Now that Triple H is in charge as the Chief Content Officer that gets the final say on WWE’s creative direction, things might change as far as Reigns holding two titles at once.
In an update on the WWE & Universal Title situation, WrestleVotes reported that WWE’s creative team might split the WWE & Universal Titles, but they don’t want Reigns losing. Here’s what was reported on that:
The situation w/ the world titles & Roman Reigns is “complex” according to a source. They would like to go into “Mania season” & WrestleMania itself with 2 champions, but they also don’t want Reigns losing AT ALL prior. I’m told HHH & co are open to all things creatively here.
— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) September 13, 2022
The next WWE Premium Live Event is Extreme Rules on October 8th. Reigns is not currently expected to wrestle on it. The next televised title defense for Reigns is likely going to be at Crown Jewel on November 5th.