On Friday Night SmackDown from the TD Garden in Boston, two matches were added to WrestleMania 36 from the SmackDown including the Universal title match.
In the opening segment, new Universal champion Bill Goldberg came out and asked, ‘who’s next?’ with the challenge answered by Roman Reigns, who walked out and said he was. Later in the show, it was officially announced as the Universal title match for WrestleMania on Sunday, April 5th in Tampa, Florida.
Despite being teased last week, there is no longer a men’s SmackDown Elimination Chamber match scheduled for the pay-per-view next weekend and instead, Reigns was announced as the challenger for Goldberg.
As of now, the plan is to have the Raw women’s Elimination Chamber match and the SmackDown tag team Elimination Chamber match as the two Chamber matches on Sunday, March 8th in Philadelphia.
SmackDown ended with John Cena’s return and announcing he was would skip WrestleMania this year to make way for the future stars. It was a swerve as The Fiend Bray Wyatt appeared on the stage as Cena was about to exit and pointed to the WrestleMania with Cena accepting the challenge.
The SmackDown side has undergone changes to the WrestleMania card with these two matches settled on recently as the key directions on the brand.
Below is the updated card for WrestleMania 36 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on Sunday, April 5th:
*Brock Lesnar vs. Drew McIntyre for the WWE title
*Bill Goldberg vs. Roman Reigns for the Universal title
*Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte Flair for the NXT title
*John Cena vs. The Fiend Bray Wyatt
