WrestleMania 38 will feature a unification match for both the WWE and Universal Championships between Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar. And while there’s been plenty of build-up for the matchup itself with Lesnar terrorizing Reigns on SmackDown, very little has been said about what the unification actually means going forward. Will the winner hold both championships like when Randy Orton unified the WWE and World Heavyweight Championships in 2013? Will the winner simply relinquish their second title the following week? Will they have to pull double duty on Raw and SmackDown a la Becky Lynch’s brief double championship reign in 2019? Or, and this one has already been rumored, will WWE simply combine the two into a new title then introduce a new championship (most likely on Raw)?
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Reigns might have actually given away a piece of the puzzle during this week’s SmackDown. After being chased out of the ring by Lesnar “The Tribal Chief” cut a promo from Gorilla Position backstage, saying Lesnar would acknowledge him as the “Undisputed WWE Universal Champion.” It’s possible that’s the name WWE goes with regardless of who wins.
Paul Heyman, Lesnar’s former advocate and Reigns’ special counsel, talked about the evolution the pair have undergone in recent years during a recent interview with The Masked Man Show. This year will mark the third time since 2015 that the pair have main evented WrestleMania.
“I’m indescribably proud of both of them,” Heyman said. “Roman Reigns is a very strategic performer. The Tribal Chief has lived inside of Roman Reigns for a long time but it wasn’t the right time to present this persona because he had to go through all of the trials and tribulations in front of the public first. He needed his face roughed up a little more. He needed to show a little bit of age. The Tribal Chief just couldn’t be the best-looking man in the industry in his late 20s. He had to be a little more seasoned, he had to be a little more grizzled. To speak as the Tribal Chief before he’s the Tribal Chief would not have made sense. He’s very comfortable in this presentation. This is authentically who he is. This is how he sees himself. I like to say that SmackDown is the best reality show on television because you’re getting to see the real Roman Reigns for the first time. He’s not being forced to go out there and smile and tell you how much he just loves to go and sign autographs at 4 in the afternoon for all the little kids that are coming to the show. No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to do media appearances that he doesn’t want to do. He does the ones that he chooses to do because they’re the right ones to host the Tribal Chief.”
“In terms of Brock, Brock just never felt like talking. Brock Lesnar does what Brock Lesnar wants to do and Brock Lesnar doesn’t do what Brock Lesnar doesn’t want to do,” he added. “When Brock came back, he had been gone long enough and looked different enough and is really comfortable enough with himself now that he just says, ‘Screw it. This is who I am and they’ll like me for who I am or they won’t. I’m just going to give them the real Brock Lesnar,’ which is a far more smart-ass Brock Lesnar than most people were even prepared to see. But if you watched him in the UFC press conferences, this is Brock Lesnar. This is who he is. So, again, in an age where authenticity is a very big selling point with the audience, it’s just getting both of them to be authentic.”
