WWE Likely To Change WrestleMania 31 Main Event Plans
Ever since Brock Lesnar won the WWE championship at SummerSlam back in August, even the most casual WWE fan could see the direction WWE was going in for the WrestleMania 31 main-event.
It’s no secret that WWE wants Roman Reigns to be the next face of the company and take John Cena’s place as the man in WWE. Their plan as of this summer, and the subsequent months, was to have Brock Lesnar win the WWE championship and crush everyone on his way to the WrestleMania 31 main event where he would lose to Roman Reigns. Now it’s likely that WWE could be changing their plans for the WrestleMania 31 main event due to multiple issues with their original plan.
It’s been reported that Brock Lesnar’s current WWE contract is expiring after WrestleMania 31 in March. It’s also been reported that Lesnar is interested in fighting again, and could possibly leave WWE in March and rejoin the UFC and attempt to reclaim the UFC heavyweight title.
As of this moment, Lesnar has not signed an extension with WWE and may be using a return to the UFC as leverage in his WWE contract negotiations in an attempt to get WWE to pay him more money for the same amount of appearances that he’s contractually obligated to make in his current deal.
The fear within WWE is that the fans who are attending WrestleMania 31, who are generally the most hardcore fans WWE has, could end up turning on the match between Lesnar and Reigns, or simply not caring because they know Lesnar is leaving which means Reigns will win.
WWE has already faced a problem like this back at WrestleMania 20 in 2004 when both Goldberg and Lesnar were leaving after the event, so the fans ended up not caring at all about the match between the two.
The likely alternative that WWE is going to go with is to have John Cena defeat Brock Lesnar at the Royal Rumble in January, making Cena the new WWE champion, tying Ric Flair’s record for most title reigns with 16.
Since WrestleMania audiences are typically the most hardcore fans WWE has, that means John Cena will likely be booed going into the WrestleMania 31 main-event, forcing the fans to cheer for Roman Reigns.
There have been several reports, including one by the Wrestling Observer, that WWE may go in the Cena vs. Reigns direction for WrestleMania 31. If they do that would mean that, for the moment at least, Brock Lesnar has decided to not sign an extension with WWE.
If WrestleMania 31 is Lesnar’s “swan song” with WWE then he will not be in the main event as WWE champion, and it’s likely that he will be facing off against The Rock as Vince McMahon reportedly wants that match to happen badly.
If Lesnar wins at the Royal Rumble and ends up in the WrestleMania 31 main event, then that will likely mean he signed an extension with WWE and will be around for at least another year. But as of right now it’s still a 50-50 chance that Lesnar will leave WWE and rejoin the UFC.
[Image via neoseeker.com]
