Who Should Finally Dethrone Roman Reigns For The WWE Universal Championship?

By Lourence Alturino

Image from Bleacher Report

Roman Reigns has been the WWE Universal Champion for exactly 343 days as of this writing. Reigns won the title at the 2020 Payback pay-per-view, defeating The Fiend and Braun Strowman in the process. During his championship reign, Roman has formed partnerships with Paul Heyman and The Usos, creating the Bloodline faction. The current Universal Champion has spent the last 343 days feuding with the likes of Jey Uso, Kevin Owens, Daniel Bryan, and Edge for SmackDown's top prize. One of the biggest questions in wrestling today, is who will finally be the man to dethrone Roman for the title. Today, I discuss 3 potential candidates that I would like to see defeat Reigns.

3. Finn Balor

Finn Balor is the first ever Universal Champion. Though his reign only lasted little under 24 hours, he will forever be cemented in history as the inaugural champion.

A Roman Reigns vs Finn Balor match for the championship was teased heavily in past SmackDowns, with Roman actually accepting Finn's challenge for the match. As for right now, the match is called off and is not known when it could happen now.

While, it is very unlikely, Balor defeating Reigns is something I would truly love to see. The Prince has once again proved that he is one of the best in the world with his recent NXT Championship reign. The crowd is very behind Balor and it would be a great moment.

2. Big E

After the 2020 WWE Draft, Big E has been on fire as a singles star. Big E became Intercontinental Champion on the 12/25/20 episode of SmackDown by defeating Sami Zayn. Since then he has lost the championship to Apollo Crews at WrestleMania, but he now has something more valuable.

Big E is now Mr. Money In The Bank. The 8 time Tag Team Champion now has the power to cash in for a world championship at any time. Many have been pushing for a Big E World Title run for a long time and it can happen very soon.

Whether he cashes in on Bobby Lashley or Roman Reigns is unknown, but there is a decent chance that we could be seeing Big E cash in and win the Universal Championship from the Head of the Table.

1. Drew McIntyre

In the past year, Drew McIntyre has cemented himself as one of the biggest stars in wrestling. McIntyre won the Royal Rumble and became a 2x WWE Champion in 2020. During his second reign, he actually lost to Roman Reigns at Survivor Series in the Champion vs Champion match.

McIntyre and Reigns have had a storied rivalry with multiple matches under their belt. Drew has been very unsuccessful when it comes to matches with Roman, but that should soon change.

I predict the former 2x WWE Champion gets drafted over to Friday Nights in this year's draft, leading to Roman Reigns vs Drew McIntyre in the main event of WrestleMania 38. Drew won his first WWE Championship at a WrestleMania with no fans, but now he can finally get his big moment by defeating the Tribal Chief at the grandest stage of them all.

Final Thoughts

Roman Reigns has easily been the best Universal Champion to date. At the end of the day, someone will dethrone Reigns for the title. Who it will be is a big question and I trust WWE to give a great answer.