WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament To Begin On Raw
The road to crown a new world champ begins on Monday, culminating at Night of Champions.
WWE dropped its first details Saturday night about the upcoming World Heavyweight Championship tournament to crown the new titleholder who will rule over Raw.
During Backlash, they announced that the tournament would begin on Raw Monday night. This being WWE, they then immediately made it confusing by following up that the tourney would continue Friday night on SmackDown... for a world title that is exclusive to Raw. So either Raw superstars will be showing up on SmackDown less than a week into the supposedly enforced brand split, or SmackDown superstars will be eligible to compete for a Raw world title.
The new/resurrected World Heavyweight Championship was unveiled a couple weeks ago to serve as a second world title in advance of Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns being drafted to a brand. Reigns unified the Universal and WWE Championships at WrestleMania 38 and defended them together as one title, despite carrying both belts around for the entire year. It was rumored often that Reigns could theoretically defend one at a time, even lose one to give him a loss without stripping him of the title and longevity run.
But in announcing the new WHC, Triple H took swipes at Reigns' reduced schedule and how he rarely defended the title, saying fans deserved a champion who shows up every week to compete. Once Roman was drafted to SmackDown, the new title became a Raw property.
There's still no word on how many wrestlers will be in this tournament or whether it's limited to active Raw superstars (or if free agents such as Brock Lesnar can compete), but it will conclude at Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia in three weeks, where they will crown a new champ.