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.

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#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.

#4 Roman Reigns had the most number of title shots

It took Roman Reigns 7 tries to get the Universal Championship.

Roman Reigns is the current Universal Champion. But it took him numerous attempts to successfully clinch RAW's top belt. He failed six times to win the championship before finally slaying the Beast at SummerSlam 2018.

His failed challenges for the Universal Championship are as follows :

The fatal 4-way match of RAW

WWE Roadblock end of the line

WWERoyal Rumble 2017

WWE SummerSlam 2017

WWE WrestleMania 34

WWE Greatest Royal Rumble

#3 The title was named in honour of WWE Universe

On the first RAW episode after the brand split in 2016, Mick Foley unveiled that the newest world championship will be named as WWE Universal Championship, and the title was named so in honour of the WWE universe. This is kind of ironic because WWE is notorious for turning a blind eye towards what the fans want and consistently ignoring their chants.

#2 Roman Reigns is the only Grand Slam winner with the Universal championship

Finn Balor has not held a mid-card championship or a tag team championship. Kevin Owens is not a tag team champion yet. Goldberg and Brock Lesnar were not even interested in any other titles. Hence none of them are Gland Slam Champions yet.

That leaves only Roman Reigns. He has won the tag team championship with Seth Rollins in 2013. He became a World Champion in 2015, United States Champion in 2016 and Intercontinental Champion in 2017, thereby becoming a Grand Slam champion. His Universal championship win at SummerSlam 2018 makes him the only Grand Slam winner to be a Universal Champion.

#1 The title defences

Brock Lesnar's Universal title reign was heavily criticized by WWE universe.

Kevin Owens was the Universal Champion for 188 days. Brock Lesnar was the Universal Champion for 504 days and Roman Reigns has been the champion for more than a month now.

Even though Brock held the title almost thrice as long as Kevin Owens, both of them had the same number of televised defences - seven.

Including WWE Live events, Kevin Owens has 40 defences whereas Brock Lesnar has 13. Also, note that Roman Reigns in his span of one month has had 13 title defences overall.

Between SummerSlam 2016 and 2018, there have been 17 televised Universal championship matches whereas, on SmackdownLive, there have been 26 WWE title matches.