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Just what is going on with the WWE Universal Title picture?
With Finn Balor's injury and Kevin Owens' subsequent ascension, the WWE Universal title picture has proven unpredictable, and that's a good thing. WWE.com

Just what is going on with the WWE Universal Title picture?

The past few weeks in WWE have been tumultuous, at least as far as the main event picture on Monday Night RAW is concerned. The company's flagship show needed a World Champion to represent its brand, and it seemed as if they'd found the perfect choice in Finn Balor. The former NXT Champion was drafted to RAW and was immediately given the star treatment -- he won two matches in his first night on the show (including a clean victory over Roman Reigns to earn a title shot), and then went on to become the WWE's first-ever Universal Champion after beating Seth Rollins clean as a whistle. It was clear that WWE had decided to hitch its wagon onto The Demon King, and the future seemed bright.

Unfortunately, in the process of his star-making moment, Balor suffered a severe shoulder injury that has put him on the shelf for the next six months and also forced him to relinquish the title that he'd won the night before. WWE's been criticized in the past for doing a less-than-stellar job of creating new main event stars, and it seemed like a painful moment of irony that the one time in which they pulled off a masterful job of building a legitimate main event draw, the man gets injured in an extremely unfortunate circumstance. With the title vacated, it was decided that there would be a four-way elimination match to determine the next Champion, and who would get the initial run with the belt that Balor unfortunately missed out on.

Now, conventional thinking led fans to speculate that even though there were four wrestlers involved, there were really only two serious options for WWE to go with as Universal Champion: Seth Rollins or Roman Reigns. After all, Big Cass (and his charismatic tag team partner, Enzo Amore) may have been popular, but he wasn't anywhere near as seasoned as the other three wrestlers involved. Meanwhile, Kevin Owens -- who has arguably been the most entertaining heel on the roster since being called up from NXT -- was clearly the most popular wrestler involved, but it seemed like a World title victory for him was still out of the question at the moment. After all, WWE has had a habit of sticking to safe, predictable booking as far as their main event picture was concerned, so it only seemed reasonable that they'd go for the safe choice in the marketable Reigns or the reasonable choice in Rollins, since they'd be able to bill him as the heel Champ who "callously" put the inaugural Champ on the shelf.

Over the course of what was a very entertaining and well-thought out match, it seemed as if WWE was indeed going to go in the direction that everyone figured they would. Big Cass was the first man eliminated, but he still came out of the match looking like a legitimate threat, so that's definitely a positive for him going forward. However, the second and third eliminations are what had the wrestling world going absolutely nuts. With the match seemingly going in Roman Reigns' favor, one of the biggest shocks in recent memory occurred when Triple H, of all people, made a run in and attacked Reigns. He hit him with the Pedigree -- which, for some reason, is still the strongest finishing move in the WWE right now when applied by The Game, himself -- and left the scraps for Rollins to collect. While this was a twist, it was a safe twist since it seemed logical that Triple H would return to get revenge on Reigns for his defeat in the main event of WrestleMania 32 and help his protege win the title. However, this is when the twist got exciting. 

Instead of hitting a Pedigree on a prone Kevin Owens, Triple H turned his legendary finisher on the man who he passed his finisher down to -- Seth Rollins. The look on Kevin Owens' face as Triple H gave him a nod of approval before he smashed Rollins' face into the mat mirrored the reaction of nearly every fan and general observer of this wacky show. Meanwhile, the hot crowd in Houston was jubilant, and the show actually ended with Owens -- who is one of the biggest heels in the company, mind you -- being showered with "You deserve it!" chants from the adoring crowd. As the legendary Gorilla Monsoon would've put it, it really was a "happening."

What makes this development so exciting is the fact that it's opened up so many questions as far as the future of the WWE Universal Championship is concerned. What's even better is that the questions are the good type of questions, instead of the bad type of questions that leave you trying to figure out how they can recover from a mess that they booked themselves into. In this case, WWE has left us all wondering just what in the world is going on. Why did Triple H go rogue on his (seemingly former) Authority partners in Stephanie McMahon and Seth Rollins? What direction does Rollins go in after this? Just how many golden nuggets are we going to hear Kevin Owens give us with his mic work on the next episode of RAW? Also, who is going to be his first challenger? Will they find a way to revive his never-ending feud with Sami Zayn? What will his relationship with Triple H be as we go forward? Did they actually form an alliance, or was this just a power play on the COO's part in order to get one over on RAW's authority duo of Mick Foley and his wife? For the first time in a while, nobody can really make heads or tails of exactly what's going on with the main storyline on Monday Night RAW, and that's actually a really good thing! We've reached another point in WWE's history where there is genuine intrigue surrounding the flagship show, and that is a very positive development.

When Finn Balor suffered his extremely unfortunate injury, WWE was given a huge batch of lemons. With the way that they have developed things since the injury, they've made themselves a tasty batch of lemonade out of those lemons. They have laid the foundation for what could be one of the most interesting storylines that the company has come up with in years. Of course, this all depends on how they execute going forward, but for now, they've given the fans something exciting to anticipate. An extremely talented wrestler and entertaining personality will be carrying the Big Red Belt on the Big Red Show, and the possibilities are endless.

With Smackdown Live just being a solid show from top-to-bottom, NXT still managing to stay interesting despite the ton of recent call-ups to the main roster, and RAW giving itself an injection of intrigue with the end of last Monday's show, it's really a fun time to be a WWE fan right now. That's all that most fans ask for during these times -- fun!

Can you name every WWE Triple Crown Champion?

The Triple Crown Champion is defined as the wrestler who has won two individual titles (world and secondary; in this case, WWE World Heavyweight/World Heavyweight and Intercontinental) and a tag team championship. Clue given is the date that they achieved the Triple Crown-title that achieved it (WH: World Heavyweight or WWE World Heavyweight; TT: Tag Team; IC: Intercontinental).

SCORE:
0/32
TIME:
6:00
12/9/80 - IC
Pedro Morales
10/12/92 - WH
Bret Hart
11/26/94 - WH
Diesel
3/31/96 - WH
Shawn Michaels
3/29/98 - WH
Stone Cold Steve Austin
8/30/99 - TT
The Rock
4/29/01 - TT
Triple H
5/20/01 - IC
Kane
12/9/01 - WH
Chris Jericho
10/20/02 - TT
Kurt Angle
2/15/04 - WH
Eddie Guerrero
3/14/04 - WH
Chris Benoit
9/18/05 - IC
Ric Flair
1/8/06 - WH
Edge
6/11/06 - WH
Rob Van Dam
7/23/06 - WH
Booker T
11/13/06 - TT
Randy Orton
12/14/08 - WH
Jeff Hardy
1/19/09 - IC
CM Punk
3/9/09 - IC
John 'Bradshaw' Layfield
4/5/09 - IC
Rey Mysterio
2/15/11 - WH
Dolph Ziggler
5/1/11 - WH
Christian
4/1/12 - IC
Big Show
7/23/12 - IC
The Miz
3/29/15 - IC
Daniel Bryan
8/20/17 - TT
Dean Ambrose
11/20/17 - IC
Roman Reigns
4/8/18 - IC
Seth Rollins
4/7/19 - WH
Kofi Kingston
3/26/20 - WH
Drew McIntyre
4/10/21 - TT
AJ Styles

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