On New Year's Day, Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar will square off for the Universal Championship at the first ever WWE Day 1 pay-per-view.
Regardless of who wins between Reigns and Lesnar at Day 1, the feud is expected to extend into WrestleMania 38. So barring a drastic change of plans, Saturday will just mark one of several future showdowns between the Universal Champion and the babyface version of Lesnar.
In the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer wrote that the result of the Reigns-Lesnar match "is expected to be the first step in the build to WrestleMania."
There's plenty of focus on Paul Heyman, who was fired two weeks ago from his role as Reigns' special counsel on SmackDown. Meltzer suggested that this whole thing could be a "ruse", with Heyman betraying Lesnar and helping The Tribal Chief retain his Universal Championship. Of course, it's also possible that Heyman is truly done working for Reigns, and perhaps he'll renew his partnership with Lesnar.
Day 1 will be held inside the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. There are currently eight matches on the Day 1 card. The next WWE pay-per-view — Royal Rumble 2022 — will take place four weeks later on Jan. 29 inside The Dome at America's Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
For what it's worth, Drew McIntyre is being advertisted for several Universal Championship matches at house shows in January. This is a strong indicator that the Lesnar-Reigns program will go on hiatus after Day 1.
Reigns Is 2-2 vs. Lesnar
Lesnar won the first two one-on-one showdowns with Reigns, defeating him at WrestleMania 34 and The Greatest Royal Rumble. Reigns has evened the series with wins over Lesnar at SummerSlam 2018 and of course Crown Jewel 2021 two months ago. The winner of Saturday's match will go up 3-2 in the all time series lead.