Paul Heyman said Bron Breakker came close to reaching WrestleMania’s main event picture before injuries and shifting plans pushed WWE in a different direction. Heyman said the company first built toward Seth Rollins vs. Roman Reigns, then turned to Bron Breakker vs. CM Punk after that fell apart, only for that second plan to collapse as well.
Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton will headline Saturday night, while CM Punk and Roman Reigns will close Sunday’s show. Rollins, who was injured when the original Reigns match was scrapped, recovered in time for WrestleMania weekend and will wrestle Gunther tonight. WWE did not return to the Rollins-Reigns plan once it became clear Rollins would be ready, because the Punk-Reigns and Rhodes-Orton matches were already underway by then.
Heyman said the sequence left him out of a WrestleMania main event for the first time since WrestleMania 35, when the event was still a one-night show. “I don’t think it’s a big secret that everything was driving this year to be Seth Rollins vs. Roman Reigns, and then that fell apart. And then it was going to be Bron Breakker vs. CM Punk, and that fell apart,” he said. “So I was in line to be a part of the main event this year, and fate intervened not once but even twice.”
The twist is that the injury that opened the door for a Breakker-Punk plan did not keep Rollins off the card at all. He still made it back for tonight, but by the time he was cleared, the center of gravity for the two-night affair had already moved. Punk vs. Cody Rhodes would have been the other main event if Reigns vs. Rollins had held together, which means one injury altered the shape of the entire weekend more than once.
That leaves Heyman with the rare role of watching both headline matches from the outside as WrestleMania unfolds across Saturday and Sunday. The matchups are set now, and the path that might have put bron breakker in a major WrestleMania spotlight is part of the story, even if it never made it to the ring.
