WWE will crown a new WWE World Heavyweight Champion at WWE Night of Champions, and a new report shines some light on the path up to this point.
As Triple H announced during the April 24 episode of WWE RAW, a new champion will be crowned at the premium live event. As a result, WWE will shift back to having a world champion on each brand, which hadn’t been the case since Universal Champion Roman Reigns beat Brock Lesnar to win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 38.
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select reports that WWE didn’t have plans to unify the world titles prior to the Day 1 premium live event in 2022. But when Reigns contracted COVID-19 and was unable to compete, the company shifted source and put the WWE Championship on Lesnar to set up the unification match.
Per Sapp, in 2022, internal documents indicated that there was a plan to split the world titles again. Drew McIntyre or Seth Rollins were reportedly slated to face Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship, but these plans changed.
As previously noted, the second WWE premium live event in May was set to be WWE King and Queen of the Ring, and the King of the Ring tournament would take place in May. But Sapp wrote that these plans were altered in conjunction with the booking of the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
