Opinion: Ranking the effectiveness of all of the Universal Champions

#2: Roman Reigns

Roman's win was the culmination of almost three years of storytelling.

Roman's win was a long time coming.

He was pegged as the Golden Boy once the Shield disbanded the first time and he was consistently given records and accolades to back that up.

He set the record for the most eliminations in a single Royal Rumble. He won a Royal Rumble match.

He was slated to take the WWE Championship off of Brock Lesnar.

Him finally winning the Universal Championship off of Lesnar at this year's Summerslam was both a sigh of relief for detractors that his neverending story of chasing the belt was over.

It was also a step upwards having a full-time wrestler as a champ rather than the part-timer Lesnar.

Reigns immediately stated that he was going to be a fighting champion and defend the belt as much as possible.

He gave Finn Balor the rematch he never got for the title and was taking the belt in the right direction.

Unfortunately, we all know how things turned out so shortly after he won the belt.

He would have to relinquish the belt in order to battle a recurrence of his leukemia.

Lesnar eventually regained the belt, but for at least a couple months this year, things appeared to finally be heading in the right direction.

EFFECTIVENESS METER: 7 - A FEW DEFENSES AND TURNED BELT INTO A RESPECTABLE PRIZE RATHER THAN A PROP OVER HIS SHOULDER