Roman Reigns is in possession of both the WWE and Universal Championship. With him being drafted exclusively to the SmackDown roster, the promotion is in dire need of a World Champion on RAW. In order to combat this, Triple H announced the creation of the World Heavyweight Championship. He also declared a tournament to decide the new champion. We now know all the participants that will compete for the opportunity to become the first ever holder of the reactivated championship.
Interestingly, the tournament will feature wrestlers from both RAW and SmackDown rosters. There will be two triple threat matches on both shows. The winners of each triple threat match will face each other at the end of the night to determine the final competitors from RAW and SmackDown.
The RAW winner will then face the SmackDown winner at the Night Of Champions in Saudi Arabia on May 27th to determine the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
WWE World Heavyweight tournament participants revealed
WWE have uploaded a video on their official twitter page to announce the 12 participants who will compete for the opportunity to become the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion. The wrestlers announced for the tournament are:
AJ Styles, Cody Rhodes, Bobby Lashley, Shinsuke Nakamura, The Miz, Sheamus, Austin Theory, Damian Priest, Edge, Rey Mysterio, Seth Rollins, and Finn Balor.
12 WWE Superstars from #WWERaw and #SmackDown look to claim the World Heavyweight Title at #WWENOC.
Find out who they are NOW! 👀 pic.twitter.com/v5qvYFx5eH
— WWE (@WWE) May 7, 2023
The first night of the tournament starts on this week’s episode of Monday Night RAW. The second night will take place on Friday Night SmackDown.
Interestingly, despite being a RAW exclusive championship, the inclusion of SmackDown performers has caused a bit of confusion among fans.
It is not clear what will happen in the event that a Friday Night competitor wins the tournament. Will the title be another championship that Reigns could chase on SmackDown or will the winner be drafted to RAW instead?
All these questions will be answered in due course. For now, we will have to wait and watch, and the first stop begins on RAW this week.
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