More on WWE’s Decision to Unify WWE & Universal Championships & Debut of New World Title

As noted before, WWE recently announced the debut of a new World Heavyweight Championship in the company and its inaugural champion to be crowned at this month’s Night of Champions event in Saudi Arabia.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that WWE officials’ decision to create a new World title belt originated from a major change in plans in early 2022 over the status of their WWE and Universal Championships.

It was reported that WWE officials did not have any plans prior to early 2022 to unify their top titles and only planned to do so following Roman Reigns contracting COVID-19 at the time. This reportedly was the reason why WWE officials made the decision to have Brock Lesnar win the WWE title at their Day 1 event in order to lead into a unification match at WrestleMania 38.

It was also reported that while WWE officials had plans at one point last year to split up the WWE Universal title, those plans were dropped a few weeks later. These plans reportedly would have involved Cody Rhodes winning the WWE title and defending it against Drew McIntyre or Seth Rollins.

It was also reported that while WWE officials originally had planned to hold a King and Queen of the Ring event in May, those plans were changed following this past April’s WrestleMania 39 event to accommodate the plans for their new World Heavyweight title.