The New WWE World Heavyweight Championship Brings Back A Better Lineage
Image Source: WWE.com
On the April 24th episode of Monday Night Raw, Triple H introduced the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship and announced the new champion will be crowned at Night of Champions on May 27th. There have been many mixed reactions to this news. Some of them been complaints about the design of the title and others have claimed it’s “the second-place” championship. If the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship is the second-place championship, what does that make the WWE Universal Championship. Even with Roman Reigns holding the Universal Championship for almost 1000 days, the lineage of the Universal Championship is terrible. Let’s examine the Universal Championship shall we.
The Universal Championship was created in 2016 as part of the brand split. Finn Balor, its inaugural champion only held the championship for less than a day before vacating the belt due to injury. During it’s seven years as a championship we have seen Kevin Owens, Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Bray Wyatt, and Braun Strowman hold the championship. Considering that Goldberg, Lesnar, and Reigns are all part time champions, the belt hasn’t had much TV time or built enough prestige to be looked at as equal to the WWE Championship. Roman Reigns has done a wonderful job making the Universal Championship mean something, but there is one problem. By merging the WWE Universal Championship and WWE Championship, it really means that Reigns is WWE Champion and the Universal Championship really doesn’t mean a thing at this point. It does not have near the lineage that the World Heavyweight Championship
You can clearly see that the new World Heavyweight Championship is a new version of the “Big Gold Belt.” Before the World Heavyweight Championship came to WWE, it was part of the NWA and WCW. There are many great wrestlers who held the championship and some of those include Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat, Barry Windham, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Kevin Nash, Jeff Jarrett, Chris Jericho, Rick Rude, Lex Luger, The Great Muta. Scott Steiner, and Sting. Those are just some of the greats who held the “Big Gold Belt” under the NWA and WCW Banners. Fortunately for those us of who were fans of the belt, Triple H is someone who appreciates the great and rich history of the business. He brought back the belt and it was renamed the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
The belt made its presence felt in 2002, when the initial brand split was happening and built a very incredible lineage before merging with the WWE Championship in December 2013. The men who held this championship include the likes of Shawn Michaels, Randy Orton, Batista, Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio, Kane, Edge, CM Punk, John Cena, Jeff Hardy, The Undertaker, Dolph Ziggler, Mark Henry, Christian, Alberto Del Rio, Sheamus, and Daniel Bryan. It should also be noted that The Big Show, Booker T, Chris Benoit, and Chris Jericho are the only wrestlers to hold the championship while it was the WCW Championship and after it became the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
While people might complain about the look of the championship or the fact that a hard brand split is happening again, you cannot refer to this championship as a “second-place” championship. Are you going to tell all the men who held the “Big Gold Belt” that it was a secondary championship? No, because it that would be very naïve and foolish. The return of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship is something fans should be excited about. They are going to get a full-time fighting champion and it will give someone else a chance to shine while Roman Reigns sits at home as WWE Champion for the time being. On May 27th at Night of Champions, the rich history and lineage of the World Heavyweight Championship will continue and carry on once again.
