Former Royal Rumble winner confronts Roman Reigns as unexpected first challenger post-WrestleMania 38

The Tribal Chief has his first challenger after unifying the titles.

It's hard to disagree with Roman Reigns when he says he has done it all and won it all. After his victory over Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 38, he unified the two WWE World titles and is now the undisputed champion. However, a former Royal Rumble winner confronted Reigns as his unexpected first post-WrestleMania title challenger.

Reigns has been the most dominant WWE superstar of the past decade. His run from August 2020 up till now has been unprecedented. It has made him the longest-reigning world champion of the modern era. At WrestleMania 38, he unified the two world titles by beating Brock Lesnar in the main event.

In the latest episode of SmackDown, Roman Reigns talked about The Usos and the need to unify the RAW Tag Team titles. Former Royal Rumble winner Shinsuke Nakamura then confronted him.

Although nothing was made official, Reigns hugged Nakamura before The Usos superkicked him - signaling that the Japanese star would be the former's next challenger at WrestleMania Backlash.

Bloodline Love! 😳

#SmackDown https://t.co/3a7D6nIbNt

Shinsuke Nakamura gets a shot at Roman Reigns 15 months later than he should have

Some forget that Shinsuke Nakamura never got his long-overdue title shot against Roman Reigns. In early 2021, The King of Strong Style won an incredible gauntlet match, defeating top stars to earn a Universal Title shot against Reigns at the Royal Rumble.

😮😮😮

#SmackDown @ShinsukeN @WWERomanReigns @HeymanHustle @WWEUsos https://t.co/BhxPLCALvc

However, in a big twist, Reigns got Adam Pearce involved in the match and attacked Nakamura before putting Pearce's body over him to get the pin. While Reigns vs. Pearce was initially scheduled for a Universal title match at the Royal Rumble, the authority figure replaced himself with Kevin Owens instead.

Nakamura never got a Universal title shot after that, and this could be it all finally coming full circle. Many expected Drew McIntyre ve the next challenger, but the Scottish Warrior will be busy next week as he faces Sami Zayn in a rematch from the latest SmackDown episode.