Ranking every single Universal Champion from worst to best
On the first Monday Night Raw after the second brand split, then-general manager Mick Foley introduced the Universal Championship. A reaction to Smackdown's Dean Ambrose retaining his WWE Championship in the Shield triple threat at Battleground, the announcement was met with relative excitement. Fans were expecting the return of the big gold belt, the World Heavyweight Championship. But a completely new belt gave WWE the opportunity to create a completely new legacy with a completely new belt.
It did not start off well. The design was basically a completely red version of the WWE Championship. It seemed lazy and uninspiring, causing the crowd at SummerSlam to turn their attention away from the inaugural title match between Seth Rollins and Finn Balor in favour of chanting about a belt design they did not approve of. The championship's luck did not go much higher from that, with many obstacles in the way.
Things like instant relinquishment or a lack of clean defences or an outright lack of defences have earned the Universal Championship the moniker of being cursed. This was solidified by events of the past month when Roman Reigns was forced to drop the title due to his battle with leukaemia and the eventual match between Brock Lesnar and Braun Strowman. While there has been a bunch of cool moments involving the Universal champion, or championship, it still has not had that one defining babyface reign.
Here is every Universal Champion, in its tainted existence, ranked from worst to best, based on their reign.
#5 Finn Balor
The tale of Finn Balor is an unfortunate one. He became the first ever Universal Champion after beating Seth Rollins at SummerSlam, less than a month into his WWE main roster career. However, he suffered a shoulder injury in the match and was forced to relinquish the title the very next night on Raw. Balor has since been unable to reach those lofty heights of world title success. He did not even get his rematch until the night after this year's SummerSlam.
The Irishman made his return from injury on the Raw after WrestleMania, one night after Brock Lesnar won the big red belt, and was pegged to go one-on-one with the Beast. However, that match never happened and Balor got his rematch one night after Lesnar lost the title.
If it wasn't for Balor's bad luck, his Universal title reign would have likely been the best one. But it is rooted to the bottom for the simple reason that it lasted for one day. It is sad when you think about how the founder of the Bullet Club is floundering now in the mid-card of Raw.