It was confirmed during the "New Year's Revolution" episode of Friday Night SmackDown last week that Roman Reigns will take on Randy Orton, AJ Styles and LA Knight in a Fatal 4-Way at Royal Rumble 2024.
However, it has now been revealed that the original plan was to make Orton, who just returned to the WWE universe after 18 months, fight Reigns at the Royal Rumble but that couldn’t become a possibility.
"The actual deal here is that… the original idea was Roman (Reigns) and Randy Orton for the Rumble,” said Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio.
“Essentially, there were parties involved who did not want to beat Randy Orton this early and just felt that there’s money to be made with Randy Orton and Roman in a program at some point, but it’s too soon to do it.
“But LA Knight just got beat and AJ (Styles) isn’t strong enough… I think AJ is the guy they probably would’ve wanted because Roman can beat him. The basic gist was that AJ gives them someone they can beat, LA gives them someone they can beat,” he concluded.
It must be noted that Roman Reigns, along with The Bloodline, interrupted the triple threat match featuring Orton, Styles, and Knight whose main purpose was to determine the next top contender for The Tribal Chief’s WWE Universal championship.
Since the match ended without any result, it was decided that a fatal 4-way would take place at the Royal Rumble.
The updated Royal Rumble lineup:
Men’s Royal Rumble
Women’s Royal Rumble
WWE Universal Championship: Roman Reigns (c) vs. Randy Orton vs. LA Knight vs. AJ Styles
United States Championship: Logan Paul (c) vs. Kevin Owens