Here’s Who WWE Does (And Doesn’t) See as Early Contenders For The New World Heavyweight Championship

WWE introduced a new World Heavyweight Championship on this week’s Monday Night Raw as Paul Levesque declared the first champion would be crowned at Night of Champions next month and that the title would be on whichever brand doesn’t pick Roman Reigns in the 2023 WWE Draft. Insider WrestleVotes then gave an update on WWE’s plans for the title in a new interview with GiveMeSport, saying that Seth Rollins has a “very strong chance” of being booked as the first champion. Rollins cut a promo on the title after its introduction, pointing out how he’s one of the few men Reigns couldn’t beat and how, unlike “The Tribal Chief,” he’ll defend this new title consistently. WrestleVotes also named an “outside the box” pick in Shinsuke Nakamura, who recently made his return to WWE TV. Under Levesque’s booking, Nakamura held the NXT Championship twice. 

They noted that Cody Rhodes likely won’t be the first champion as his program with Reigns is still ongoing. “The American Nightmare” will likely be looking for a WrestleMania 39 rematch with Reigns once his current feud with Brock Lesnar ends. 

“Where do you want to go with the story and how do you want to get there? In the moment, you think, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe.’ If you’re watching a movie and you thought every scene in the movie was the last scene in the movie, ‘I can’t believe they did that, worst movie ever.’ Oh wait, there’s more. How much do we weigh that out? Every single moment of every single day. Some days when I’m trying to sleep and I can’t sleep, it’s because I’m weighing that out in my brain and I wish that I could sleep. It’s all you think about and it consumes your every moment of everything you do. You feel it. Sometimes your feeling is wrong and sometimes your feeling is right. I do know that it always continues and the story doesn’t end here,” Levesque said following WrestleMania while explaining why Rhodes wasn’t booked to beat Reigns in the WrestleMania main event.

“Some people will look at it and say, ‘if you did this, it would have been better.’ You don’t know that, do you? You’re never going to know because if you did the other thing, it might not have worked out the way you wanted to. People might not have reacted the way you wanted to. It’s always feel and where you are at that moment, honestly, it’s the right place to be and that’s where you have to be and bank on what’s next. If you continue to tell the story and if I didn’t feel like we had a compelling story on the other side, it wouldn’t be the decision,” he continued.