5 lesser known facts about the Universal Championship
The Universal Championship is the primary men's title on RAW, at least from the kayfabe perspective. RAW's commissioner Stephanie McMahon introduced the title in 2016 since the then WWE World Heavyweight Champion Dean Ambrose was drafted to SmackdownLive, and RAW's Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns could not win it from the Lunatic Fringe.
Every wrestling fan knows that Finn Balor was the first Universal Champion and had to relinquish the title due to his unfortunate shoulder injury. It was then held by the Prizefighter Kevin Owens. Goldberg defeated Owens at Fastlane to drop it to Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania, who then had a mammoth reign of 504 days.
Roman Reigns defeated the beast at SummerSlam 2018 to become the Universal Champion. The Big Dog is scheduled to defend his Universal Championship against Brock Lesnar and Braun Strowman at WWE's live event at Saudi Arabia - WWE Crown Jewel.
However, there are some facts about the Universal Championship and its holders that you might not know. In this list, we will be taking a look at those facts. Without further adieu, let us start.
#5 Brock Lesnar is the only Universal Champion to invoke his rematch clause
In WWE, the Champions who lost their title are entitled to a customary rematch. The most interesting thing about the Universal Championship is that none of its holders invoked his rematch clause before Brock Lesnar. Finn Balor was injured, Kevin Owens moved on to a feud with Chris Jericho leading to Wrestlemania and Goldberg retired from in-ring action.
With his imminent UFC return in course, everyone expected Brock Lesnar to follow the same road. However, he showed up at WWE Hell in a Cell 2018, and on the next episode of RAW, Paul Heyman invoked the beast's rematch. Finn Balor's Championship match against Roman Reigns does not count because Finn did not invoke his rematch clause for that.