Roman Reigns Favored to Still Be WWE World Champion By the End of 2022
Roman Reigns closed out WrestleMania 38 by unifying the WWE and Universal Championships, making him undisputedly the top star in the company and the most dominant champion in recent memory. He hasn't lost a match outright since December 2019, his Universal Championship reign is the longest in company history, he just main evented his sixth WrestleMania and, based on WWE president Nick Khan's latest comments, WWE isn't slowing down their plans for "The Head of the Table" anytime soon. But will Reigns still hold WWE's top prize by the end of 2022? According to BetOnline, yes.
The online sportsbook released a special betting line this week, asking if Reigns would still be either Universal or WWE Champion by the end of the year. "Yes" was favored with -150 odds while "No" had +110. Those odds aren't overwhelming — Reigns has often had better odds going into every pay-per-view championship defense over the last 18 months — but the fact that he's still favored to be a reigning champion by Jan. 1, 2023, is staggering.
As for his next opponents, Drew McIntyre is reportedly lined up as the next challenger. There's also the matter of Cody Rhodes, who has been teasing going after the WWE Championship since his return at WrestleMania this past weekend. Rhodes finally addressed Reigns on this week's episode of The Bump.
"...When I left here, Roman Reigns was on top. And I think Roman Reigns was experiencing some of the negative byproduct of being on top. Some of the pushback that a new face, a new individual [deals with]," Rhodes said. "But the thing that makes a champion in any company is consistency. And when he said 'Dallas, Texas, acknowledge me' and whether they're supposed to boo, cheer, whatever it might be, and they acknowledged him. That's what, you want to know a term that is really overused in what we do, is over.
"...He has truly gotten over via consistency and via hard work. What he has going now with Paul Heyman and [The Usos]," Rhodes added. "I don't want to use this word because I don't want to sound like... he's an intimidating presence. I just look forward to obviously, again, it exists. There's a match out there that is likely the match that exists out there. But before the matches, you've got to cross paths in some capacity and we haven't yet, and I look forward to that."