Backstage Rumor on WWE Booking Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns for Day 1 Over Royal Rumble

– On last Friday’s edition of WWE SmackDown, Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship was made official for the WWE Day 1 pay-per-view event scheduled for Jan. 1. During today’s Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer discussed the reasoning behind booking a Lesnar vs. Reigns rematch for the upcoming Day 1 show over a bigger event, such as Royal Rumble 2022, which is also scheduled for January.

According to Meltzer, the Day 1 event is an idea that came from WWE President Nick Khan, and Khan reportedly wants the event to be a regular, ongoing show for WWE. Typically, holiday or December PPV events do not do very good business for WWE. Holiday wrestling shows tend to not do very big business unless they have a great lineup, so WWE is trying to load up this card to help establish it as a major destination event for WWE.

Meltzer stated, “To establish this as a traditional big show, the idea is to make this one of the biggest shows of the year.” As a result, WWE opted to book Lesnar vs. Reigns for Day 1, since it’s one of the biggest matchups they can book on paper at the moment. The feeling on paper was that Royal Rumble didn’t need the matchup as badly, since WWE is hoping to make Day 1 an annual tradition.

Additionally, Meltzer added that this won’t be the last matchup for Reigns and Lesnar, reporting that yet another rematch between the two is still planned for WrestleMania 38.

Also scheduled for the card, Big E defends his WWE Championship against Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins in a Triple Threat Match. WWE Day 1 will be on Saturday, January 1. The event will be held at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. It will be broadcast live on Peacock in the US and the WWE Network everywhere else.