Roman Reigns – Daniel Bryan may take place at Royal rumble 2021, but this is subject to change considering WWE has booked for this rivalry to take place several times over the past few years only to reverse the decision a few weeks before the rivalry is scheduled to begin
Daniel Bryan is currently penciled in to face The Tribal Chief Roman Reigns for the Universal championship at Royal Rumble in January 2021, but this may be subject to change. Daniel Bryan is a member of the WWE creative team (and is receiving excellent reviews for his work on SmackDown) so he has a lot of say in the formation of his storylines. This is also a massive feud that will draw significant attention to the company, so Vince McMahon as well as the rest of the WWE creative team are very carefully planting the seeds to make the story interesting. The company has planned for this rivalry to manifest on several occasions in the past few years, but they have never been confident enough in the formation of the story to pull the trigger.
The first time this feud between Reigns and Bryan was explored was in February 2015 at the Fastlane Pay-Per-View(during the buildup to WrestleMania 31 – Reigns’ first encounter with Brock Lesnar). This was the year The Big Dog won the Royal Rumble match despite the fact that the entire WWE universe was displeased with the result – everyone was rooting for the returning Daniel Bryan to win. As a result, a number one contender’s match was booked for the following month.
The most recent mention of booking this rivalry to take place was during the summer of 2019. There were rumors that a Roman Reigns – Daniel Bryan match may take place at SummerSlam that year. A couple of weeks before the event, WWE decided to wait on booking this blockbuster match. The company felt the timing was not quite right to build a story with a sufficient amount of continuity – perhaps because Roman Reigns had only been back in WWE for about six months after taking a hiatus due to the return of his leukemia.