From the WWE Rumor Mill: Roman Reigns expected to drop the WWE Intercontinental title before WrestleMania

What's the story?

On a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed Roman Reigns as the new WWE Intercontinental Champion. On the show, Meltzer said that Reigns will lose the championship before WrestleMania 34 in April.

In case you didn't know...

On last week's edition of Monday Night Raw, Reigns was a guest on Miz TV, which led to the title match. Off-camera, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins joined Reigns in delivering The Shield's patented triple powerbomb on Miz through the announce table to write him off television while Miz films the new Marine movie.

The heart of the matter

According to Meltzer, the plan is still on for Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar to clash at WrestleMania 34 for the WWE Universal Championship. However, he stated that it is very unlikely that Reigns will go into the match as the WWE Intercontinental Champion.

With Samoa Joe attacking Reigns after his match with Elias on this week's Monday Night Raw, Meltzer thinks that Joe is the person to take the championship off of Reigns. A likely time for that to happen would be the Royal Rumble on January 28th as there is not a Raw-branded pay per view before then.

What's next?

On next week's edition of Monday Night Raw from Los Angeles, California, expect Reigns to exact revenge on Joe after the attack this week.

Author's take

When Roman won the WWE Intercontinental Championship from The Miz last week, my immediate thought was that he would keep it all the way until WrestleMania.

However, if the sole purpose on putting the title on Reigns was to get it off The Miz while he's filming The Marine: Close Quarters, while making Reigns a grand slam champion in the process, it would make sense that he drops it to Joe before focusing on Lesnar for Mania.