Why Brock Lesnar must drop the Universal Championship at SummerSlam

Brock Lesnar has held Raw hostage since April of 2017 with his reign as Universal Champion. Lesnar has only appeared on a part-time basis, and this has really hurt the overall product on Raw with no world champion appearing on a regular basis. With Lesnar being so dominant on the red brand, no one else has stood a chance when competing against “The Beast”. This really makes viewers uninterested in the storylines on Raw, because they know their favorite wrestlers are just being fed to Lesnar.

The only guy who seems on the same level is Roman Reigns, and even he has been unsuccessful on three separate occasions. The first time was three years ago at WrestleMania 31, the second in April at WrestleMania 34, and the third a few weeks later at the Greatest Royal Rumble. Despite the unsuccessful attempts, Reigns is being given another chance at the Universal Championship at SummerSlam, and the fans don’t care because we have seen this match too many times.

Despite Reigns not being the most popular choice to be the next Universal Champion, it will start to begin the process of bringing credibility back to the Raw roster, which it has lacked since Lesnar has been the Universal Champion. Lesnar has only defended the Universal Championship just six times on TV since winning the title from Goldberg at WrestleMania 33 on April 2, 2017.

The lack of title defences and appearances from Lesnar as Universal champion is ridiculous. WWE fans expect to see the top champion on a show appearing on a regular basis and defend the title to keep the fans interested in the product.

Throughout Lesnar’s title reign, he has been handed the top opponents from the Raw brand and has easily defended his title on selected PPV’s. This is not a good message to be sending to your audience when the world champion defends his title when it suits him and is booked as superior to everybody else on the Raw brand. This only makes fans stop watching the product when Lesnar is not around with his Universal Championship.

By the time SummerSlam takes place, Lesnar will have held the Universal Championship for 504 days – the longest world title reign in WWE since Hulk Hogan dropped the WWE Championship in February 1988. Lesnar can be a major asset to the product when he wants to be... due to his presence and the unpredictable element that both Lesnar and his advocate Paul Heyman bring to “Monday Night Raw”.

The unfortunate reality is that Lesnar is on his way back to UFC and SummerSlam will most likely mark his final appearance in WWE for quite some time, due to Lesnar shoving UFC fighter Daniel Cormier at UFC 226 and re-entering the USADA drug-testing pool.

It has been way overdue for some time for someone else to have a run with the Universal Championship and that man needs to be a full-time talent who can defend the title on a regular basis. The roster will become more credible without Lesnar running rampant with the Universal Championship and making the Raw roster look weak in the process.

I would like to see Braun Strowman cash in his “Money in the Bank briefcase to become Universal Champion at SummerSlam but seeing Roman Reigns with the Universal Championship should be an improvement over Lesnar’s title reign.