WWE: Who Was The Best Champion For Each Title In 2018?

Credit: WWE.com

Universal Championship: Roman Reigns

There’s truly no way to describe how badly the Universal Championship has been treated over the past couple of years.  Despite its world championship classification, Raw’s top prize has been anything but a top prize and more like a prop that only gets used every few months.

Brock Lesnar has two separate reigns with the Universal Championship since April 2017 that exceed well-over 500 combined days, but for a few short weeks in 2018, the title seemed like it was heading back on the right path with the crowning of Roman Reigns as champion at SummerSlam.  It took far too long, but The Big Dog finally captured the Universal Championship and appeared to have rid the WWE of the frustrating reign of The Beast Incarnate.

Reigns defended the title the night after SummerSlam in a great match with Finn Balor and went on to defend against Braun Strowman at Hell In A Cell.  Few believed his third title defense against Baron Corbin on the Sept. 17 edition of Raw would be his last defense, but real life interfered.  On the Oct. 22 edition of Raw, Reigns announced that he would have to relinquish the Universal Championship and step away from the WWE to battle Leukemia.

Since that shocking announcement, Lesnar has regained the Universal Championship and has yet to defend it since his win at Crown Jewel.  Despite the Universal Championship’s dilapidated status, The Big Dog made it feel important like it should feel and for a while, fans had hopes of seeing a world title on Monday nights that makes an appearance week in and week out.

The closest thing to a traditional world title reign the Universal Championship has seen in close to two years came courtesy of Reigns, so he earns the right to be called the best Universal Champion of 2018.