WWE's Original Idea to Get Roman Reigns to Lose One of His World Championships

By Connor Casey

Roman Reigns is still the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion and, by every indication, will enter WrestleMania 39 next April with both titles as his reign as world champion nears 1,000 consecutive days. The closest Reigns came to dropping his title appeared to be at Clash at the Castle in September when Drew McIntyre, backed by a raucous Cardiff crowd, came inches away from putting down "The Tribal Chief." But the debut of Solo Sikoa thwarted that. 

Reports from @WrestleVotes popped up recently that WWE has an issue when it comes to Reigns — they want to have two separate world champions again by WrestleMania season but don't want Reigns to take a loss between now and his rumored dream match with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The insider then told GiveMeSport this week that one of WWE's big ideas for how to get around that was at Clash at the Castle and involved McIntyre, Tyson Fury and Austin Theory's Money in the Bank contract.

Was Roman Reigns Supposed to Lose the WWE Championship?

The initial idea was apparently for Austin Theory to cash in his briefcase during the match and cause it to become a triple threat a la Seth Rollins' cash-in at WrestleMania 31. Fury would then knock Theory out, giving McIntyre the opening to pin him and win the match without Reigns taking the loss. And because Theory's cash-in would have only been for one of Reigns' titles (most likely the WWE Championship since the plan would've kept Reigns' record-breaking Universal Championship reign in tact), WWE would suddenly have two world champions again.

"The only thing they could think of was with Austin Theory," WrestleVotes said. "He was going to somehow make it known that he was only cashing in for one of the belts. Therefore, it became a triple threat, and Tyson Fury stopped him like he did, and Drew would then would take one of the titles. For whatever reason, that didn't work, and it sounds really convoluted. I don't know how you're gonna pull it off on TV."

They then added that the title change was considered up until the day of the show — "They wanted to make the titles separate in the moment, because they do want to titles again, but they're struggling to figure out how. I do know that they were talking up until maybe night of or day over here." Instead, Theory attempted the cash-in only for Fury to knock him out before it could be made official, so the one-on-one match continued uninterrupted. Sikoa broke up a pinfall late in the match after McIntyre hit a Claymore Kick, and the distraction gave Reigns the opening to hit a Spear and secure the win.

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