Rumors have been circulating that WWE is considering the idea of separating its World Championships both of which are held by Roman Reigns.
For almost a year, Roman Reigns has been the proud owner of both the WWE and Universal Championships. However, it appears there may soon be a shift and the two titles will be split again.
Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio, as reported by Subhojeet Mukherjee of ThirstyForNews.com, has suggested that WWE may be thinking of splitting the titles in the near future, possibly by WrestleMania 39 on April 1 and 2.
At WrestleMania 38, Reigns came in as the Universal Champion and in the main event bout on night two, he was triumphant over Brock Lesnar, the reigning WWE Champion, thus becoming the Unified WWE Universal Champion.
What Next For Roman Reigns?
The Tribal Chief has kept his status as World Champion for close to 900 days and will defend the title in two weeks at the Royal Rumble against Kevin Owens.
Reigns has been widely speculated to be taking on either Cody Rhodes or The Rock at WrestleMania 39, with a plethora of ideas on how it could all come together. It is feasible that if WWE succeeds in getting The Rock to take part in WrestleMania, Reigns could find himself having to defend both of his titles on the main event in two successive nights.
Another option could be that Reigns relinquishes one of the championships prior to WrestleMania, leaving him to defend one against The Rock, and possibly Cody Rhodes – who is returning at the Royal Rumble and is one of the favourites to win the titular bout and thus earn an automatic title shot – going up against Seth Rollins for the other.
Despite Reigns’ success as the sole World Champion, having two titles would be beneficial to WWE, especially since Reigns works a limited schedule and thus defends the titles infrequently on television and Premium Live Events.
By putting one of the World Titles on someone more visible each week on TV, such as Rhodes, WWE could engineer a situation where one of the titles is more active and the other is reserved as a special attraction.