What if WWE had unified the Universal and WWE Championships on Raw?
The Raw after WrestleMania opened this year with the most unlikely of promos. After Universal Champion Seth Rollins gave a straightforward rundown of his victory over Brock Lesnar and his intentions to be a fighting champ, new WWE Champion Kofi Kingston arrived. Kingston proposed a winner take all, title for title match at the end of the show.
The idea of unifying the top two titles in sports entertainment the night after WrestleMania felt pretty electric, and Kingston and Rollins seemed like a reasonable enough duo to put on a match worthy of the occasion. Nonetheless, fans quickly felt uncertain about what the match could mean, given that both men are well liked and it was good to see them both win their titles the night before. It would inevitably feel like a letdown for one of those men to only be a one-day champ.
WWE chose option C, with The Bar interrupting the main event, only to give way to a no stakes tag match. Still, this scenario raised the question—what if WWE had unified the titles on Raw?
#3. Another sign of the brand split ending
The brand split between Raw and SmackDown has felt increasingly tenuous in recent months. Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair openly hopping between shows at will, and new call ups Ricochet and Aleister Black regularly working both programs with little rhyme or reason. That’s not to mention the Women’s Tag Team Championship, more openly defended across both main roster brands, as well as NXT.
If WWE were to have pulled the trigger on unifying its top two men’s titles as well, it certainly could have signaled WWE was going all in on ending the brand split. After all, putting the top title from each show together would leave only the Intercontinental, United States, and individual tag titles unique to each brand.
The tag divisions would probably do just as well to unify anyway, and WWE has had two secondary titles active concurrently often enough, regardless of the brand situation. Without a top prize to pursue, unique to each show, the concept of having distinct shows largely dissipates.