The Universal Championship Match between Brock Lesnar and Seth Rollins wasn’t originally scheduled to kick off WrestleMania 35.
Following Alexa Bliss’ surprise in the form of WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan, Paul Heyman had a shocker of his own: Since Lesnar wasn’t in the main event, he arranged to have the Universal Championship Match kick off the night. Rollins, however, came out on top as he landed three Stomps on Lesnar to put “The Beast” down for good and capture the Universal Championship.
According to PWInsider, the Universal Championship Match was originally scheduled to take place right before the main event featuring Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch in a “Winner Takes All” Match for both the Raw and SmackDown Women’s Championship titles.
The change in the line-up of matches was made around 5:30 p.m, which is when the WWE Cruiserweight Championship Match between Buddy Murphy and Tony Nese took place on the WrestleMania 35 Kickoff. PWInsider speculates that it may have been done, as Heyman said on the mic, to accommodate Lesnar so he could fly back home as soon as possible. A lot of people were surprised by Heyman’s appearance, including Hogan.
WWE originally planned on kicking off WrestleMania with AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton.
The remainder of the card, with the exception of Brock vs. Rollins and Styles vs. Orton, took place in the originally scheduled order.
