Drew McIntyre’s Second WWE Title Win Was A Late Decision

When Randy Orton beat Drew McIntyre to win the WWE Universal Title at last month’s Hell in a Cell pay-per-view event, some fans were caught off guard for two reasons.

The first being WWE booking Orton to lose to McIntyre twice before on pay-per-view. The other being the company building towards a non-title match between Orton and WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns at Sunday’s Survivor Series pay-per-view event.

It was reported that the plan as of last Friday was for Orton to face Reigns at Survivor Series but those plans changed by the time they went on the air.

Of course, McIntyre won back the WWE Title by beating Orton on Monday’s episode of RAW.

Dave Meltzer reported in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that all of the key players were under the impression before RAW went live on Monday that Orton was still planning to wrestle Reigns at Survivor Series.

As a result, things changed between that time and when the decision was made to have a title switch.

Meltzer brought up the belief among many people in the company that Orton likely figured out that he was losing the title when McIntyre appeared on last week’s SmackDown.