I voted for neither. It just doesn't flow with what has been happening in WWE.
So say Reigns wins the Universal title. Where does this leave Seth Rollins? Seth's strategy, which has been stated several times is to go through Jericho and then to KO to get the Universal title and finally end up with Triple H. But if Reigns wins the belt, where does that leave Seth's path? There's no point to him fighting KO to get to HHH anymore since KO is not the champion. So does Triple H just come out and say, "Hey Rollins, let's fight at WrestleMania even though you didn't come close to accomplishing what you wanted to accomplish." That would be awkward.
Then what happens with Jericho and Owens? Does Owens get mad at Jericho for not helping him retain the title and that's how they start feuding? I could see Owens, "Yeah, you were suspended in a cage up above the ring but you could have gotten out if you'd lay off the burritos and lost some weight! Let's fight at Mania!" And although a KO and Jericho match would likely be entertaining in any way, it makes more sense for it to be for the Universal title due to their whole "We're the Universal Champion" gimmick. So give the belt to Reigns and that sort of goes nowhere.
So there are two very good scenarios that have been building for MONTHS that sort of suffer just to give Reigns a title win that WWE knows will continue to create a lot of negativity. Honestly, the smart thing to do would be to have Reigns lose the match due to interference from Braun Strowman and have Braun face Reigns for the US belt at WrestleMania. Strowman has every reason to do this after Reigns speared him the other day.
In regards to the World title, everyone knows Cena tying Flair's "record" of 16(21) World titles is going to happen. This has been building for years. So the plan is to have this wrestling history moment happen at the Royal Rumble? Now I love the Rumble and I look forward to it more than any event of the year, even WrestleMania. But that's a WrestleMania moment. I know I am not a big Cena guy but he DESERVES to have that moment in front of a huge WrestleMania crowd.
If they are going for Cena vs Undertaker at WrestleMania, I think the match will be less predictable if it's just a match and not for the belt.
Also if Cena and Reigns both win, which I think is BEYOND ridiculous, you're likely to have two faces going into WrestleMania with their top two belts. And not only that, two faces who have only been champions for a couple months. Not only that, two faces who are likely to retain their belts at WrestleMania. Because if Cena is champion, I assume they'll put him up against Undertaker and I really don't think Undertaker is going to become champion. If Reigns is champion, then the likely match is Reigns vs Strowman. I do NOT see them giving Braun a world title reign right now. So you set up a predictable WrestleMania, just like the previous one (which they were LAMBASTED by critics for).
Now honestly, WWE could be stupid enough to do this. I mean, they've shown how stupid they can be.
I guess the one scenario I would like with Reigns would be if they made the Rumble the Braun Strowman show. Have him completely dominate the Royal Rumble. Have him throw out both Goldberg and Lesnar (like HBK did with Vader and Yokozuna in 1996). Have him win, have Reigns win and build hard towards WrestleMania. At the very least, we'll get a match with Strowman likely beating the crap out of Reigns for the most part.
But honestly, I think the better choice would be to have Strowman dominate the Rumble like I mentioned above, but not win. And not have Reigns win. Then you get can have Jericho and KO at Mania for the Universal title. You could also have Strowman vs Reigns for the US title. The reason Strowman vs Reigns for the US title is BETTER than Strowman vs Reigns for the Universal title is that it actually is more believable that WWE might put the US belt on Strowman than it is for the Universal belt. And then the match is less predictable and more enjoyable.
But who knows? I like to think WWE would have more sense than to do this, but they've been that stupid before. I just think they have a chance for a much better WrestleMania lineup if they don't do something this dumb.
