Roman Reigns’ absence from Day 1 due to testing positive for COVID-19 caused many problems to WWE when it came to planning the event. This led to the shocking decision of moving Brock Lesnar to the WWE Championship match and booking him as the winner, pinning former champion Big E.
Fightful reported that the talents were informed of these changes at around 5 PM, one hour before Reigns testing positive was announced. It is believed that the change of plans caused WWE to rethink the length of many matches on the card, as the original main event was planned to be almost thirty minutes long. According to sources, Big E. was originally set to be the planned winner and therefore still WWE Champion walking out of Day 1.
Several sources behind the scenes also feel that Big E. was not booked consistently during his tenure as WWE Champion. In his 110 day long reign, the former New Day member obtained clean wins over Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre, but he was defeated cleanly by Roman Reigns at Survivor Series and many felt like he was becoming a background character in his own title feud against Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens.
