On March 26, 2020, it was reported that Roman Reigns would not be challenging Goldberg for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 36 due to health concerns and the growing Coronavirus outbreak. However, Goldberg will defend the championship at WrestleMania and reportedly has a monster of an opponent.
Dave Meltzer reported on the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio that former WWE Intercontinental Champion, Braun Strowman, will be the one to challenge Goldberg at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, for the championship. According to Dave, an angle was taped to be inserted into the March 27 episode of Friday Night SmackDown on Fox that will set up the match between these two men for the show of shows.
WrestleVotes on Twitter was the first to hint at this change-up, tweeting out a gif of Braun embracing Roman shortly after the news broke that Roman Reigns would be missing WrestleMania 36.
— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) March 27, 2020
Strowman, who remained off television since losing the Intercontinental Championship to Sami Zayn at WWE Elimination Chamber, will have his first one-on-one match at WrestleMania. He competed in the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal in 2017, successfully captured the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship in 2018 with a grade-school boy named Nicholas, and won the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal in 2019.
Fightful will have live coverage of SmackDown beginning tonight at 8 P.M. Eastern.
