The WWE Universal Championship Hasn't Been Defended On RAW In Over 17 Months

Only four men have held the WWE Universal Title that Brock Lesnar has dominated for over 450 days. There seems to be a problem with how the Universal Title is rarely seen on Raw. This is an interesting position for Raw's top title to be in, but the Universal Title's short history isn't loaded with appearances anyway.

When Finn Balor became the first-ever Universal Champion at SummerSlam 2016, he didn't raise his newly won title in victory after the match. Some thought Balor didn't hold up his title because the Brooklyn crowd hated the red design, but the truth was that Balor suffered a severe shoulder injury and couldn't lift the weight. Kevin Owens won the title soon after and became the most-active Universal Champion we've had so far.

The Universal Championship hasn't been defended on Raw since January 30th, 2017 when Kevin Owens defeated Braun Strowman via DQ in a five-minute tease. Since Goldberg won the Universal Title from Kevin Owens at Fastlane 2017, Raw's top title hasn't been held by a full-timer since nor has it been defended on a Monday night.

The Universal Title has only been defended on Raw three times since its incarnation and Kevin Owens was either the defending champion or he walked away with the title in every match. Since winning the Universal Championship from Goldberg at WrestleMania 33, Lesnar has only made twenty-one appearance on Raw and never worked a match. In fact, Lesnar's last match on Raw was in 2002 against Tommy Dreamer. The fact Lesnar doesn't work on Mondays might frustrate some people but an attraction like Lesnar is booked carefully for a reason.

Many fans are upset with Lesnar due to his infrequent RAW appearances, however ultimately it was WWE that made the deal. It was also WWE's booking decision to keep the belt on Lesnar for so long, leaving the RAW brand without a champion for the majority of live events and TV shows. Reddit user neilson241 posted this graphic that illustrates just how much Lesnar has been on Raw since becoming Universal Champion. In total, Lesnar has only been on Raw for 196 total minutes, which averages to around 9.33 minutes a shot. That is not a lot of time on a three-hour program to feature the show's top title, especially if those appearances are scattered out with huge gaps where Lesnar and the Universal Title are never seen.