The Day The WWE Universal Title Died
It's 2020, and WWE need The Big Dog to resuscitate a big dud.
At Clash Of Champions 2020, Roman Reigns and Jey Uso worked the best Universal Championship match in the title's troubled history.
The contest was an incredible fleshing out of a story that had been delicately crafted on television, with 'The Big Dog' waiting just under a month to unleash his escalating fury over 23 pulsating but heart-wrenching minutes.
Like every truly great pro wrestling encounter, it asked just as many new questions while answering the ones it had posed in the build. We all learned - to our horror - that Roman Reigns was more than prepared to beat his cousin within an inch of his life to pepper familial respect with fear. After weeks of fake smiles and stolen glares, Reigns looked deep into Uso's soul through his panicked eyes and threatened to rip it out. But what on earth might he do next to somebody he'd not spent his entire life bonding with? And who would dare stop him? Was Paul Heyman curating Sunday's grisly theatre, or merely just another potential victim staying safe by staying close?
This was the f*cking fantastic stuff rather than the just good sh*t. The reason we all dedicate the time we do to all that original weekly output. A proper babyface and a proper heel having a match for the company's richest prize. And that was perhaps the biggest achievement in a main event full of them - the stakes felt sky high. Reigns took Uso's purely decorative lei as a crown to anoint himself 'The Tribal Chief', but he held the Universal Title aloft as the prize that still mattered most.
The king of unthinkable acts, if it was shocking to watch him brutalise somebody with a brotherly bond, it was downright outrageous that he'd managed to bring a belt back to life at the very same time.
CONT'D...