10 WWE SummerSlam 2016 Predictions

3. Finn Balor Becomes The First WWE Universal Champion

finn balor
WWE.com

When Dean Ambrose was drafted to Smackdown, Raw found itself without a heavyweight champion. In response, Stephanie McMahon and Mick Foley created the WWE Universal Championship, a belt named after the company's fanbase. Seth Rollins was placed into the SummerSlam match to crown the first champion, while the debuting Finn Balor earned his way in with victories in one evening.

Common logic dictates that Rollins - who's the company's MVP and was the first overall pick in the recent draft - should win the belt and reign as champion on Raw, but that's too obvious for WWE and it doesn't make the best use of "The Demon King". After two years as a star in NXT, it's time for Balor to really burst out on the main roster, and there's no better way to make use of him than as Universal Champion.

A Balor win would kick the new title - and the new era of Raw - off on a more interesting note than simply putting the belt on Rollins. I don't expect him to hold it for long - Rollins or Lesnar will win it by the winter - but Balor's going to get first dibs.

Contributor
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Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried. *Best Crowd of the Year, 2013