Charlotte Flair and Drew McIntyre won the Royal Rumble matches last night, but WWE’s original plans had Shayna Baszler and Roman Reigns winning, according to a report by Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio (subscription required).
From Meltzer:
“This is confirmed. Shayna Baszler and Roman Reigns were scheduled to win the two Royal Rumbles. And then as they were trying to decide what was going to happen for WrestleMania, the decision was made instead to go with Charlotte Flair and Drew McIntyre.
“The 14th would have been the day of the change because there was a lot of money that started being bet on Charlotte Flair on the 14th. Originally almost all of the money was coming in on Shayna Baszler.”
If Reigns had won, he would have likely challenged Bray Wyatt for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania. McIntyre winning seems like it was clearly the better choice, since it established him as a top guy, and the fans may have turned on Reigns if he won again, considering that he was already getting some pretty loud boos during the match. Reigns also doesn’t need to win the Royal Rumble to face Wyatt at WrestleMania anyway.
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