WWE was turned on it’s head at Wrestlemania 38 when Roman Reigns unified the World Title by defeating WWE Champion Brock Lesnar. He added the WWE Championship to his collection of titles, along with the Universal Championship of which he is in the midst of a near-two year reign.
It was the first time WWE unified the belts since 2013, and the first time there had been one world champion since 2016. Roman Reigns sat aloft the WWE Universe as the sole champion of the world, but why did WWE unify the World Titles in 2022?
Why did WWE unify the World Titles?
According to “a source” of Wrestlevotes, WWE decided to unify the WWE Championship and Universal Championship because it “would allow Roman Reigns to appear on both show (Raw and Smackdown) more regularly.
As a plan, this makes a lot of sense. Roman Reigns is currently the biggest star in the company and having him on both shows would be a big draw for viewers. The fact he is so popular with fans made this decision a no-brainer, and a clever way to get around the brand split that WWE imposed in 2016.
However, that idea has not gone entirely to plan. Roman Reigns’ schedule has been quieter than ever after Wrestlemania and has barely appeared on WWE shows at all. In fact, he is only scheduled to appear on one episode of Monday Night Raw all summer, which makes his title reign absolutely disastrous if that was the reason why they put both championships on him.
Roman Reigns also missed the Hell in a Cell pay per view last week, and is currently not booked for the upcoming Money in the Bank show either. WWE have hamstrung themselves by putting the title on a wrestler who will not wrestle at most of their shows and hasn’t had a match since last month.
He is set to defend his championships this week, however. He is finally taking on Riddle on Smackdown for his titles, with the caveat being if Riddle loses then he cannot challenge Reigns for the titles again. This is likely what was meant to be the main event of Money in the Bank and was simply pushed forward to Smackdown instead.
In his last match, Roman Reigns said in front of a house show crowd after a victory over Drew McIntyre;
“From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate all of ya’ll. I obviously had the Internet talking last week or the week before that. I’m not going to be doing too many live events like these, on Sundays, going forward. So, this could be my last one.”
This looks like Roman Reigns could be on his way out of WWE, with rumours of a move to Hollywood being fresh in the minds of many. He could be his cousin joining The Rock as a movie star in the near future although that was require him to drop the Unified World titles in the near future.
Roman Reigns could lose the Unified world titles in WWE soon, with a rumoured match against Drew McIntyre likely for WWE Clash at the Castle. It is still not clear, based on the last 2 months, why WWE unified the World titles in 2022, but at least it could end with Drew McIntyre on top of the WWE as a double champion.