Roman Reigns has been the Universal Champion since Payback 2020. Moving on, he became the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion at WrestleMania 38 when he beat Brock Lesnar to unify the WWE and Universal Championships. During this long run, he has defeated almost every top superstar that WWE has to offer for the title.
Also, after his dual title win at Wrestlemania, Roman Reigns signed a new deal to begin a part-time schedule in the company. Nowadays, he only appears in a handful number of episodes of Smackdown and also works in a selected number of WWE premium live events. This is the reason that WWE’s Raw brand feels the absence of a top champion on their side.
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Roman Reigns retained his title at CATC
The part-time stint was also the reason why many believed that Roman Reigns was going to drop his undisputed title during this past summer. At least, one of his titles should have gone to Drew McIntyre as they met in the main event of the Clash at the Castle event, the first major PPV event in the UK since 1992. McIntyre was built as the top babyface for this encounter.
That never happened as Roman Reigns retained the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship over McIntyre after an interference from the debuting Solo Sikoa. However, WWE originally planned on making the champion lose one of his Titles through a Money In The Bank cash-in way to Austin Theory.
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WWE had a strategy to take away one of Roman Reigns’ titles
WrestleVotes told GiveMeSport that WWE had a ‘convoluted’ idea for McIntyre to win one of the top titles from Roman Reigns on his home turf,
“The only thing they could think of was with Austin Theory. 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 as 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.”
By the end of Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre at Clash at the Castle, Austin Theory did come out to cash in his MITB contract and also announced that he was only cashing in for one of the Titles due to the rule in the match contract. But Roman vs. Drew vs. Theory in a Triple Threat Match never happened as Tyson Fury knocked out the MITB contract holder at ringside.
Moving on, Theory lost his MITB contract on Raw while trying to cash in on United States Champion Seth Rollins. After Clash at the Castle, Roman Reigns also retained his Undisputed WWE Universal Title over Logan Paul at WWE Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia.
