Forty-eight days ahead of his collision with John Cena at WWE WrestleMania 29, Roman Reigns’ cousin, The Rock, unveiled a newly redesigned WWE Championship belt. He won the company’s top prize a few weeks earlier at the Royal Rumble, toppling soon-to-return AEW star CM Punk, and now had his sights set on defending it against John Cena, the Rumble winner. Rock ripped into the old, spinner-belt design that Cena had introduced during his title reign, and noted that a World Championship shouldn’t look like a toy, or spin, for that matter.
After handing off the title to a ringside crew member, asking to have it sent to the Hall of Fame, he lifted a velvet sheet off a podium to reveal a version of the WWE Championship that Roman Reigns carries at the moment. I say at the moment because it looks like Reigns could be in line to have his own The Rock-like segment tonight on Smackdown, complete with revealing a newly redesigned WWE Universal Championship.
Fightful is reporting that as of last night, there are plans for The Tribal Chief to have some sort of 1000-day title reign celebration on Smackdown tonight. There were apparently memos going around mentioning a new WWE Universal Championship, and podium that it will be unveiled on, just like The Rock did ten years ago. It was prefaced that the card is always subject to change, and creative could be altered. As an example, this past Monday, Vince McMahon, operating remotely, reportedly had Smackdown’s AJ Styles added to the Raw card.
The Rock went on to lose the WWE Championship to John Cena at WrestleMania 29 and then went back to building his empire in Hollywood, which has grown significantly. This week, Rock confirmed that he has buried the hatchet with Vin Diesel and will be returning to the Fast And Furious franchise. Interestingly, ten years later, Cena is also part of that franchise, and a showdown between the two men on the big screen is now entirely possible.