New Details Reportedly Revealed on WWE’s Changed World Heavyweight Title Plans

Seth Rollins was set to issue an open challenge for his WWE World Heavyweight Championship on this week’s Monday Night Raw, but that ultimately didn’t end up happening. Rollins’ was attacked by Finn Balor, who he will face at Money in the Bank, but that wasn’t the original plan. According to a new report from Fightful Select, the original plan was for a returning Tommaso Ciampa to challenge Rollins for the Title and get quite a bit of time for the match. Those plans were changed, and the report states that people backstage indicated that those around the match were quite frustrated with the changes.

Ciampa was supposed to make his big return from injury and answer Rollins’ challenge, but that was changed to have Rollins attacked by Balor. That would cause The Mix to come out and say he was going to answer that challenge before Rollins was attacked, but then Ciampa would come out and get into a match with Miz, who was his former Tag partner.

Fightful was told that the change was a Vince McMahon move and those who were originally planned for the match wanted to stick to the original plan. One plan was for there to be a non-finish, so that could have helped Ciampa look strong even if Rollins retained, but the exact plans for the match aren’t known yet.

There is still an internal plan to have Ciampa join up with The Way and reunite with Johnny Gargano, and Gargano was backstage at Raw. Gargano wasn’t planned for the show though when the show kicked off.

It’s unfortunate that this was changed, simply because a match between Rollins and Ciampa would have been stellar. They can always cross paths later on of course, so it doesn’t mean we won’t eventually get that. Also, when Ciampa was hurt, he was in a program that involved The Mix, so having him interact with him in a match does make sense as well.

Right now Ciampa and The Miz don’t have a match at Money in the Bank, but that could change over the next week. Hopefully, both will have some involvement, but you can find the current card for Money in the Bank below.

• World Heavyweight Championship: Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor
• Bloodline Civil War: Roman Reigns & Solo Sikoa vs. The Usos
• Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Ricochet vs. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. LA Knight vs. Santos Escobar vs. Butch vs. Damian Priest vs. Logan Paul
• Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Zelina Vega vs. Zoey Stark vs. Becky Lynch vs. Bayley vs. Iyo Sky vs. Trish Stratus
• Cody Rhodes vs. Dominik Mysterio

WWE’s Money in the Bank kicks off on Saturday, July 1st at 3 PM EST, and will stream exclusively on Peacock.

What do you think of the changed plans for WWE Raw? Let us know in the comments and as always you can talk all things wrestling with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!