Opinion: Ranking the effectiveness of all of the Universal Champions

The WWE introduced the Universal Title when they brought back the brand split in July of 2016.

Dean Ambrose had successfully defeated both Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns in a triple threat match, taking the WWE Championship, the top prize in the company at the time, to Smackdown.

Since Raw was left without a top championship, they created a new top title for Raw's wrestlers to chase, the Universal Title.

Since its inception, there have been five men to hold the belt.

Some reigns (no pun intended) have been successful while others were not.

The rankings are more indicative of how the reign affected fans and the wrestlers alike rather than who simply held the belt the longest.

At the bottom of each slide I'll rank the effectiveness on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being not effective at all (poor reign) and 10 being extremely effective (great reign).

Here are the rankings of the five men and six reigns of the men who have held the Universal Championship ranked in order of least successful to most successful.

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#6: Goldberg

Goldberg returned to the WWE after a 12-year hiatus.

Goldberg left WWE in 2004 after only one year in the company.

It was thought that he probably would never return due to his unhappiness in his year with WWE.

Things apparently changed and he made his return to WWE in 2016 after 12 years away.

Goldberg has stated in interviews that his main reason for coming back was to be a hero to his son and to children everywhere.

He made his impact when he returned and defeated Brock Lesnar in 1:26 at Survivor Series that year.

It wouldn't be the last match between the two as both would enter and fail in their attempts to win the Royal Rumble in 2017.

Goldy would go on to face and defeat Kevin Owens for the Universal Championship at the Fastlane PPV.

It was primarily so that he and Brock Lesnar could face off for the title at Wrestlemania 33.

Lesnar took the title off a Goldberg that night, starting the first of his two reigns with the red belt.

While some might consider Finn Balor's day reign as champion as the worst Universal Title reign, Goldberg winning the belt was worse.

It was mainly in order to get the belt on Lesnar and close out their feud.

He didn't defend it against anyone else but also never received a rematch for the title.

Sure it was great for those who cared about the nostalgic aspect of him winning a title, but he took it off of someone who had worked his butt of just to get respect in the WWE in Owens.

EFFECTIVENESS METER: 2 - NO DEFENSES AND HE LEFT RIGHT AFTER LOSING IT

#5: Brock Lesnar, first reign

Brock Lesnar has held the belt the longest amount of time since its inception.

As mentioned on the previous slide, Lesnar took the belt off Goldberg at Wrestlemania 33.

It would be the start of Lesnar's first run with the belt but it was ultimately marred by his part-time status.

He would hold the belt for over a year but only defend it sporadically against the likes of Samoa Joe, Braun Strowman, Kane and Roman Reigns.

His part-time status really polarized both the belt and Lesnar himself, attaching somewhat of a negative connotation to the belt.

This ranking if more reflective of the fact that he was a ghost of a champion for most of the reign, showing up to only hype or defend the belt.

Paul Heyman actually showed up more during Lesnar during the title reign.

WWE knew what they were doing when they put the belt on Lesnar, but that doesn't mean it was fair to the fans.

People can hate on Ronda Rousey as much as they want, but she's exactly right in that a champion defends their title anywhere and any time and sometimes right after a PPV.

Roman was also saying that, but he probably isn't getting any hate these days from fans.

EFFECTIVENESS METER: 4 - HIS REIGN HELD WWE BACK AND ONLY HELPED LESNAR

#4: Brock Lesnar, second reign

Brock Lesnar currently holds the Universal Championship.

Why would Lesnar's second reign be considered more effective than his first one?

Bear with me as I explain the reasoning.

While it was great that Roman Reigns finally won the belt from Lesnar after about two years of storytelling, the WWE was left with a quandary after Reigns relinquished the belt.

The most logical solution was to crown either Braun Strowman or Brock Lesnar at the upcoming Crown Jewel event.

Lesnar ended up winning the belt to the chagrin of many.

His winning the belt again served two purposes, at least for the decision-makers in WWE.

The first was they probably trusted Lesnar with the belt more than Strowman.

Although it was unpopular and I personally would have rather seen Strowman win it, Lesnar as champion was something that the WWE brass felt they could rely on in a pinch.

The second purpose was that Wrestlemania season was just around the corner.

Sure, having Strowman hold the gold going into April would have been much better, but Lesnar is a bigger star in terms of drawing power.

He would likely have been given more of a showcase match at 'Mania more so than Strowman would have.

WWE always wants the superstars they perceive as the biggest draws/stars in the mix when considering Wrestlemania season.

And unfortunately in retrospect, they would have had to quickly alter title plans again had Strowman won.

He had nagging elbow issues prior to being 'written off TV' in order to have elbow surgery.

Lesnar hasn't yet defended the belt but his first 'defense' will be at the Royal Rumble.

The jury's out as to whether he'll lose the belt or not to Strowman, but the smart money is on Lesnar retaining and holding the belt until April.

As much as it sucks to say, WWE has a ton of money invested in Lesnar and they obviously want to get as much out of it as possible.

It might not be anything special, but don't discount how important it is to have a trusted veteran hold the belt after something so serious happened to alter things.

EFFECTIVENESS METER: 5 - HASN'T DEFENDED IT YET BUT SAVED WWE FROM POTENTIALLY HAVING TWO BACK-TO-BACK INJURED CHAMPIONS

#3: Finn Balor

The win was bittersweet for Balor.

Finn Balor came to the main roster as one of the most popular NXT superstars of all-time.

He was the longest-reigning NXT Champion with a run of 293 days.

Bobby Roode is second with a reign of 203 days.

Since he came to the main roster with so much hype, a lot was expected from Balor.

His status as top dog was confirmed when he went on to face Seth Rollins at Summerslam in 2016 for the right to become the first-ever Universal Champion.

Balor won a back-and-forth match but was seriously injured during the match.

Because of the injury, he was forced to relinquish the belt on Raw the next night.

Since his reign lasted less than a day, people are probably thinking 'why isn't his reign the worst?'

Well, it wasn't for two reasons.

The first being that it marked Vince approving someone under 200 pounds as his primary champion.

Vince is well known for loving muscle-bound wrestlers who are jacked or really big like Ultimate Warrior back in the day.

Trusting a smaller guy with the top prize in the company signaled a possible sign of change for the WWE.

Another reason why his extremely short reign was significant was that he was the poster boy for NXT.

While a lot of things have changed for NXT stars on the main roster, Balor was treated like a star in NXT and one when he first joined Raw.

Perhaps that's what has soured Vince on a lot of NXT call-ups, but for at least once, Vince respected a wrestler that had been groomed down in Triple H's NXT.

NXT is literally where the future of the WWE will come from, so entrusting the belt to a former NXT superstar instead of made man Rollins was a huge sign of potential things to come.

EFFECTIVENESS METER: 6 - DIDN'T DEFEND IT BUT HIS WINNING IT WAS MORE IMPORTANT SYMBOLICALLY.

#2: Roman Reigns

Roman's win was the culmination of almost three years of storytelling.

Roman's win was a long time coming.

He was pegged as the Golden Boy once the Shield disbanded the first time and he was consistently given records and accolades to back that up.

He set the record for the most eliminations in a single Royal Rumble. He won a Royal Rumble match.

He was slated to take the WWE Championship off of Brock Lesnar.

Him finally winning the Universal Championship off of Lesnar at this year's Summerslam was both a sigh of relief for detractors that his neverending story of chasing the belt was over.

It was also a step upwards having a full-time wrestler as a champ rather than the part-timer Lesnar.

Reigns immediately stated that he was going to be a fighting champion and defend the belt as much as possible.

He gave Finn Balor the rematch he never got for the title and was taking the belt in the right direction.

Unfortunately, we all know how things turned out so shortly after he won the belt.

He would have to relinquish the belt in order to battle a recurrence of his leukemia.

Lesnar eventually regained the belt, but for at least a couple months this year, things appeared to finally be heading in the right direction.

EFFECTIVENESS METER: 7 - A FEW DEFENSES AND TURNED BELT INTO A RESPECTABLE PRIZE RATHER THAN A PROP OVER HIS SHOULDER

#1: Kevin Owens

Owens surprisingly had the most stable reign as Universal Champion.

While Owens was often treated as the cowardly heel champion, things were never more stable for the Universal Championship than when KO held the title.

After Balor had relinquished the title due to injury on the same night, a Fatal Four-Way Elimination match was held the next week.

Owens, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns and Big Cass all competed for the right to become the second Universal Champion.

When the dust settled, Triple H had a hand in the eliminations of both Reigns and Rollins, helping lead his second talented NXT superstar to the Universal Championship in Owens.

Owens was more than capable in both the ring and on the mic and his reign highlighted the belt's existence.

During his reign, he defeated Rollins, Reigns and Strowman as champion, albeit all due to interference from wrestlers.

Chris Jericho interfered multiple times in order to help Owens retain.

Strowman interfered in a match between Owens and Reigns because he hated Reigns and revealed that he was promised a shot at Owens in exchange for his help.

Reigns interfered in the match with Strowman.

Owens' reign ultimately came to an end with the writing on the wall of a Lesnar/Goldberg match at Wrestlemania.

He lost the belt in a quick squash match thanks to 'interference' from Jericho.

While Owens typically retained his belt thanks to interference, he at least was around for the company while champion and provided one of the best storylines in recent history with his friendship with Jericho.

Owens provided Raw with what Triple H and Vince hoped Balor's reign as Universal Champ would do, but Owens managed to stay healthy.

It was also another positive sign that the main title on Raw was entrusted to another wrestler who didn't fit the prototypical mold of Vince's vision of a superstar.

Owens losing the belt to a part-timer only for another part-timer to win set the belt back and it has been in trouble for the most part ever since.

EFFECTIVENESS METER: 8 - MULTIPLE DEFENSES AND PROVIDED RAW WITH A STABLE CHAMPION FOR BABYFACES TO CHASE