It’s safe to say that most wrestlers who sign with WWE dream of becoming world champion, but it’s not a goal that everyone can accomplish. Back in September of 2021, Big E cashed in his Money in the Bank contract on Bobby Lashley to win the WWE Championship for the first time in his career. However, he dropped the belt to Brock Lesnar in a fatal five-way match a few months later in January of 2022 at the Day 1 premium live event.
While reflecting on his WWE Championship reign on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Big E recalled the original plans for his match at Day 1, and revealed his honest thoughts on his one and only reign with WWE’s richest prize.
“But yeah, going from having the title, dropping it. We had that Day One PLE in Atlanta, losing to Brock, which initially that was supposed to be me and Seth. It’s supposed to be a singles match, but then Kevin Owens got added to it to become a triple threat. Then Vince, at the time, loved Bobby, so Bobby gets added to it, becomes a four-way. Then, at the time, I don’t know if you remember, Roman gets COVID, allegedly, who knows? But that was the rumor, he got COVID, so he couldn’t be there. So Brock needed a match, so he gets added to our match, and what was supposed to be a singles between me and Seth becomes a five-way, where Brock beats me for the title. But that’s the business, and honestly, the fact alone that I got to be world champion, a guy like me, is pretty incredible.
It wasn’t the run that I wanted by any means, but I’m grateful that I got it. But to go from that, to having certain Raws where I felt like I was probably in five or six segments, and then I would have to do the dark match, I’m doing pre-tapes, and there’s a lot on your back. Going from that to immediately being thrust back into, and look, I love the boys, I love The New Day. But to go from, hey, you’re on the show alone, I think they were on SmackDown at the time, I was on Raw, to immediately be like, okay, the idea of you even trying to fight back or get another opportunity, we’re not doing that. Get back to the tag team, it was demoralizing, but the wrestling business is filled with ups and downs and ebbs and flows, and I think a lot of talent get too caught up in kind of the ebbs and flows. You have to be able to ride that wave. So for me the idea was always to fight back, but it was disheartening to be thrust back into a tag team, and then it wasn’t long after that where I get dunked on my head and my career is over. So yeah, a lot of life changes in a couple of months, but more than anything, I’m just so grateful that I had the tools with meditation to be able to deal with it all.”