10 Ways Finn Balor’s Injury Affects WWE

That previous slide touched upon the benefit of affording the first-ever Universal Champion a lengthy reign with the title. Booking a strong, stalwart champion would have been the perfect way to give the title credibility and start building the legacy of the belt.

Obviously that won’t be possible now, but it’s not just the first-ever title-holder who’ll suffer as a result, there’s also something of a knock-on effect for the subsequent Universal Champion.

Imagine Finn Balor would have gone on to hold the belt for an impressive 300+ days. By the time he ultimately lost the title, that would have made the change all the more dramatic with the newly-crowned champion looking even stronger still.

Instead, though, we’re going to see someone win the belt in a hastily-arranged Fatal Four Way that doesn’t even feature the inaugural champion. Sure, winning a Fatal Four Way is a decent achievement in its own right, but it’s nothing on defeating the champion himself.

Missing out on that rub may well hurt the replacement champion, who’s always going to have that asterisk next to his reign of having never actually beaten the champ for the belt.