What does the WWE Universal Championship look like?
By Matt Couden
A look at the brand new WWE Universal Championship belt that was awarded during Sunday night’s SummerSlam 2016 pay-per-view.
The WWE Universal Championship was officially decided on Sunday night at the SummerSlam 2016 pay-per-view. In front of thousands of screaming fans at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Finn Balor and Seth Rollins put on an entertaining match. The two competitors would battle back and forth for the right to become the first-ever Universal Champion in WWE history.
The title belt was originally devised by Raw commissioner Stephanie McMahon and her show’s General Manager, Mick Foley. The championship was created as a result of Smackdown Live drafting the WWE World Heavyweight Champion Dean Ambrose. Due to that, the powers that be at Raw decided their show needed its own major title (seen below). However, they needed to figure out who would contend for it at SummerSlam.
As seen in the Twitter photo above, the championship belt features an “all red” look to it, although probably not Eva Marie-inspired. The coloring of the belt matches the color scheme for Raw being red and Smackdown being blue, giving each of the television shows a distinct branding of their major titles.
To get into the championship match, Finn Balor had to win his way into it. First, he won a Fatal Four-Way match on Raw against Cesaro, Kevin Owens and Rusev. Next, on the main event on the same Raw, Balor defeated the winner of a second Fatal Four-Way match, Roman Reigns.
As a result of his two victories, Balor earned his contender spot. In addition, Seth Rollins was automatically placed in the SummerSlam match because he wasn’t pinned at Battleground’s World Heavyweight Championship match.
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Ultimately, this gives Raw a unique new championship belt in honor of the WWE Universe. The first official reign starts Aug. 21 for the inaugural Universal Champion.