Original Plans for Undisputed WWE Title Match on SmackDown in Berlin

Drew McIntyre’s rise back to the top of WWE on the January 9, 2026, edition of SmackDown may have excited fans—but that’s not how things were originally booked to play out.

According to Bryan Alvarez on the January 12 episode of Wrestling Observer Live, the Undisputed WWE Title match was originally slated to be a triple threat between McIntyre, Cody Rhodes, and Jacob Fatu. The plan was set, until Fatu vanished from TV with a dental injury.

“You know, the original plan was a Cody–Fatu–Drew three-way. Fatu obviously vanished for a long time, but now he’s back and basically right where we were before all that happened.”

The shift turned out to be a major win for McIntyre, who defeated Rhodes in a brutal 3 Stages of Hell match in Berlin. The third fall—contested inside a steel cage—featured the surprise return of Jacob Fatu, who laid waste to both competitors. Despite the chaos, McIntyre managed to escape the cage and win his fourth world title.

Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful later added that the decision to put the Undisputed WWE Title on Drew McIntyre wasn’t last-minute—it was strategic.

“One of the things that I was hearing within the company about this Drew McIntyre title win was that a lot of people felt like he needed to win this title match,” Sapp said. “They felt that, in order to take him seriously as a top guy moving forward, he needed to win it.”

The match’s shocking finish wasn’t all creative team either—both McIntyre and Rhodes pitched the ending to WWE officials earlier that day, according to Bodyslam.net, proposing a title change to add weight to the WrestleMania build.

Now, with Fatu back in the picture and McIntyre carrying the gold, WWE seems to have circled right back to its original plans—just with a lot more heat behind them. It’s unclear whether the triple threat will still happen down the line, but the groundwork is clearly there.

Do you think WWE should still run the triple threat match this year? Or was Drew McIntyre vs. Cody Rhodes the right call all along? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you’d book next.

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