Since Drew McIntyre was added to the WWE Smackdown roster in late 2022 during the WWE Draft, fans started anticipating his battle against Roman Reigns. Being the respective top babyface and top heel of the WWE roster, a clash between the two superstars seemed evident and the company also found the perfect-most place for the match to take place.
In the native land of Drew McIntyre, he was announced to challenge Roman Reigns at Clash at the Castle 2022 edition in Cardiff, Wales from the Principality Stadium. This bout has obviously been billed as an undisputed WWE Universal Championship match. McIntyre defeated Sheamus in an Irish Donnybrook Match on WWE Smackdown to earn his right to challenge for the top title.
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Interestingly enough, Karrion Kross returned to WWE Smackdown and brutally attacked McIntyre, who was about to confront Reigns to hype up the title match. Kross’ valet cum real-life wife, Scarlett then left an hourglass in the ring, indicating that Kross intends to take the championships away from The Tribal Chief in the near future.
Following this, online rumors suggested that Roman Reigns could possibly split up the WWE and universal titles to keep one world title on Raw and the other on WWE SmackDown. But the question remains why the 37-year-old returnee appeared to be a sudden insertion to the much anticipated McIntyre vs. Reigns feud.
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Karrion Kross to get big push on WWE Smackdown
According to Fightful Select, WWE always had big plans for Karrion Kross under the leadership of Triple H. With the idea of Roman Reigns not performing after Clash at the Castle en route to Extreme Rules and McIntyre possibly winning the top title at the September PLE, the company also wanted to keep a backup challenger ready.
After his WWE Smackdown return, Kross was heavily rumored to be injected to Clash at the Castle lineup and make it a triple threat title match. But speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer affirmed that McIntyre vs. Reigns always remained a headliner for the UK PLE,
“By the way, for Cardiff, it is still Roman and Drew. And I was told, of course, this can always change, but I was told that it’s really not gonna change. They feel that has to be the match. They don’t want to be whatever…so as far as when (Kross) gets his shot at Roman Reigns because obviously, they’re building to that, I have no idea when that will be.”