WWE Raw star and a former WWE Universal champion Finn Balor who is also a former two times WWE Intercontinental Champion recently looked back at winning the WWE Universal Championship back in 2016 and it lamented about vacating the titled due to injury.
The WWE Universal title was introduced to the WWE Universe back in 2016 after WWE came up with the second brand extension of the promotion. The World Heavyweight Championship was previously merged with the WWE Championship WWE needed a different world title for Monday Night RAW as SmackDown got the WWE Championship.
Finn Balor Remembers Vacating WWE Universal Title Due To Injury
To Crown the inaugural WWE Universal champion, WWE organized a tournament where some of the biggest wrestlers of the time participated. Balor defeated Seth Rollins at SummerSlam pay per view event of the mentioned year. Previously he defeated the likes of Roman Reigns in this tournament.
From these huge victories, it would be pretty clear that WWE had really big plans for Balor. But during his match with Seth Rollins at SummerSlam, Balor got injured and he was forced to vacate the Championship. It might have been really heartbreaking for the Irish professional wrestler since he was a big project of WWE back in the time.
When he returned from injury, his main event push was gone for good. He was a mid card at best but never a main event star after that incident. He won some mid card championships since but he could never be a worthy competitor for any World title in WWE. Currently he is working as the leader of Judgement Day but it is doubtful that he would ever be pushed to the main event level ever in WWE again.
Finn Balor who is also a former two times WWE Intercontinental Champion recently spoke to BT Sport where he looked back at winning the WWE Universal Championship back in 2016 and it lamented about vacating the titled due to injury. He said;
“I don’t really have much memory from this at all (night I relinquished the WWE Universal Title) and there wasn’t any planning that went into it. Obviously, I had a couple lines I wanted to get out but, I even remember Mick Foley lifting my arm and I’m thinking, oh, that’s weird. We haven’t even spoken about this or anything and I didn’t know Stephanie [McMahon] was gonna be in the ring, like when I went out there, Stephanie was in the ring.
“But, this day was such a blur because I went from the night before at SummerSlam, straight from the hotel and we had to get up at 6 AM to go and do media so I hadn’t really slept because of the adrenaline and the media and everything so at 6 AM, went in to do media, Good Morning America and from there, we went straight to the hospital and straight from the hospital, we went straight to the show so I hadn’t really been to bed since the Saturday night so, that was kind of a blur.”
H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling