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.

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#5 Finn Balor

Not the start the title wanted.

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.

#4 Goldberg

This was always going to last four weeks.

Goldberg won the Universal Championship in controversial circumstances, beating Kevin Owens in 23 seconds. It was not the ideal way to start a world title reign that was always going to be temporary. After one-sided confrontations against Brock Lesnar at both Survivor Series and Royal Rumble, the WCW legend would face the Beast once again at WrestleMania 33. But this time, it would be for the Universal title after Da Man (Not Becky Lynch) squashed Owens at Fastlane.

Goldberg made a few appearances as the champion but could not do much in the four-week window he had the belt for. This reign is not last because it lasted for more than a day. Also, the conclusion to this reign and his run as a whole was a major success.

The two megastars had an intense and all-out brawl for five minutes, featuring three Spears, ten German Suplexes and an F5. The match at 'Mania ultimately proved Goldberg's run to be more fondly remembered than it would have been after the way he won the title.

#3 Roman Reigns

Hopefully, we see this scene again.

Like Finn Balor, this was another sad case. Roman Reigns had been chasing the Universal Championship for a really long time and seemed to finally win it at WrestleMania 34. However, WWE got cold feet and booked Brock Lesnar to keep the title for a while longer. Reigns would ultimately triumph at SummerSlam, seemingly beginning an epic, long reign filled with spectacular title defences. However, it wasn't to be. The reign was disappointing due to factors, both controllable and uncontrollable.

The Big Dog gave Finn Balor his Universal title rematch and defeated him in a great TV match. After that, we got the Shield and Dogs Of War storyline which saw a Hell in a Cell match go into a No Contest. Reigns defended the belt only twice in televised bouts, that's why hs run with the title is in the middle.

WWE would have had greater plans for him and the title, but Roman Reigns had to give up the Universal Championship due to the return of his leukaemia. Right now, his health is his main priority and one can only hope that he gets better soon. Hopefully, we have not seen the last of the Big Dog competing in a WWE ring.

#2 Brock Lesnar

No more Universal title match until at least January.

One of the storyline consequences of Roman Reigns' battle with leukaemia is that Brock Lesnar is once again the Universal Champion. The fact that he is the second greatest Universal champ in history just shows how cursed this title has really been.

With the bigging up of his non-appearances and the lacklustre feud with Reigns, people tend to forget Lesnar's first few title defences. While he did not show up for many months in a row, the Beast instantly captivated fans in his feud with Samoa Joe.

Their match was a slugfest and laid down the marker for the absolutely incredible fatal-four-way main event of SummerSlam last year. Reigns, Joe and Braun Strowman all challenged Lesnar for the Universal title, with the match turning out brilliant.

However, it all went downhill from there. Multiple victories over Strowman were accompanied by that underwhelming 'Mania main event against Reigns. Even with all of the negatives attached to this part-timer title reign lasting over a year-long, Brock Lesnar is still the second best Universal champion.

#1 Kevin Owens

Back when the Universal Championship was being regularly defended.

There could only be one winner for this. Kevin Owens is the only full-time wrestler who held the Universal Championship for a number of months and defended it on a regular basis. H basically topped this list by default. Owens was only the champion because of Finn Balor's injury, but the circumstances surrounding his victory were shocking, to say the least.

The Prizefighter won the Universal title in the most opportunistic way possible, as Triple H turned on Seth Rollins. Since then, Raw became the Kevin Owens Show (with Chris Jericho). He constantly delivered entertaining segments alongside his best friend, Y2J.

While every title match had some sort of interference, they were still really entertaining. The best match of Owens' reign came at Royal Rumble 2017, when he defended against Roman Reigns in a violent no disqualification match, with Jericho suspended in a shark cage above the ring.

The reign did end prematurely at the hands of Goldberg in a multi-second squash, but not before some legendary moments of pure entertainment. The best one was the Festival Of Friendship, the night when Owens savagely turned on Jericho.

Kevin Owens did not need to do much to become the greatest Universal Champion of all time, but his reign w indeed a highly entertaining one.