The Day The WWE Universal Title Died

The Universal Title was dead. In the ground. Perished. No more. This entire section could be the rest of the fabled Monty Python sketch, but replace every parrot synonym with that ugly blue strap. Or the ugly red one. Or the ugly $6000 (!) Fiend one. Pick your poison, but know that that's exactly what it is - you're choosing the opposite of life here. All the same, all a shame, all a doused flame.

Oddly enough, WWE actually tried to do right by a major title this time around. Perhaps karma from their last attempt at introducing a second top prize - ignore the paradox, please - caused the curse of the 2016 variant.

Not to dedicate another few pages to Triple H's wince-inducing runs with the World Heavyweight Title just now, but don't sleep on the start of it being just as bad as the racist, insecure and shoddy 2003 nadir. His matches dragged in 2002, too, and the company still just gave him the World Heavyweight Championship (and a live microphone to bury WWE Champion Brock Lesnar) anyway.

Has the Universal Championship paid the penalty for being the spiritual sequel to those dreaded days? Curses tend to link to the past as well as the present after all. And that thing was more snakebitten than Randy Savage's arm. And only half as over.

CONT'D...