Drew McIntyre will challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship tonight – but could he split the WWE and Universal championships?
It’s a huge night in the career of Drew McIntyre, as he goes toe-to-toe with Roman Reigns for the Undisputed Universal Championship on WWE’s biggest United Kingdom show since August 1992. Though he’s already a two-time WWE Champion, lifting the title on a show promoted in the UK would be the undisputed peak of his career.
He may not hold both championships for too long, though. Speaking exclusively to Inside The Ropes’ Alex McCarthy for talkWRESTLING, ‘The Scottish Warrior’ explained his reasoning behind splitting the championships – and you can’t really argue with him:
“I mean, there’s no talk to me about any plan whatsoever. That’s the truth and generally, I don’t like to find out until last minute because things change so much anyway. But you know, splitting the titles may not be a bad thing if it’s possible. I’ve been saying it constantly on TV and in the media, I do believe the titles deserve to be represented in [an] appropriate manner, which means being on the show.
When they’re both together, they can’t be on both shows. The weekend live events, the media interviews right now, the title should be represented, should be very visible that there’s a certain honour and prestige to those titles, and it used to be defended every 30 days and we’ve lost that somewhere along the line.
And they’re fine right now, they’re on a huge star like Roman Reigns but at the same time, I do believe they need to be on the show. And there’s more emphasis on wrestling right now. It needs to have the champion wrestling.”
The WWE and Universal Championships were unified at WrestleMania 38, when Roman Reigns defeated Brock Lesnar. They’ve remained separate entities, though, with ‘The Tribal Chief’ maintaining both physical championships, rather than debuting a new design.
Overall, Reigns has been a WWE champion for just over two years, having defeated Braun Strowman and defending champion The Fiend at Payback 2020 to lift the Universal Championship. His reign has been celebrated thus far, but is now expected to reach its conclusion at Clash At The Castle vs. Drew McIntyre.