5 Top WWE rumors from this week: 11-time champion favorite to win Royal Rumble; Roman Reigns' WrestleMania plans; Triple H "bummed out" (January 9th, 2022)

#4 Plans for WWE and Universal Championship at WrestleMania 38

Brock Lesnar winning the WWE Championship at Day 1 raised the question of what this means for the WrestleMania 38 match card. Over the last week, there has been massive speculation of Lesnar facing Roman Reigns in a champion vs. champion match at WrestleMania, something WWE teased on SmackDown.

Dave Meltzer has reported on the Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE is still going ahead with its original plans for the two world titles at WrestleMania 38 and Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar is still on:

"I know that they’ve got everything worked out between now and WrestleMania. Everything is worked out. All the original plans, there were some changes obviously because the Lesnar and Roman Reigns match from Saturday didn’t happen, but they’ve got their new twists and turns, and the final destination, which is presumably Lesnar and Roman Reigns, is still on," said Dave Meltzer.

This past week on SmackDown, Brock Lesnar confronted Roman Reigns and challenged him to a match. The loyalty of Paul Heyman was once again at the forefront as he caused an unintentional distraction, leading to Reigns delivering a Superman Punch to Lesnar.

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#3 Triple H's reaction to recent NXT releases

This past week saw yet another WWE release spree as several major names were let go by the company. This included NXT officials William Regal, Road Dogg, as well as top stars like Samoa Joe and Timothy Thatcher.

This was a major shock as most of these released stars were "Triple H guys". Wade Keller of PWTorch has reported that The Game is "bummed out" following these major releases:

"NXT just isn't what it once was. I've heard just a little about Triple H's reaction to all of this, and nothing super reportable other than it sounds like he's bummed out," revealed Wade Keller.

He further revealed that Triple H was building a team that he was eventually planning to bring to the main roster. Several current and former WWE Superstars have since reacted to these massive releases, and backstage morale isn't great.