The WWE Championship is the crown jewel of the company, and it has a long, historic lineage of huge names that have strapped the belt around their waist.

From Bruno Sammartino to Hulk Hogan, to Ric Flair, to The Undertaker, to Stone Cold Steve Austin, the list of superstars is literally endless.

But recently, the title has had to take a back-seat to it's newly-founded counterpart - the Universal Championship.

Following the 2016 Brand Split, and subsequent move of then-WWE Champion Dean Ambrose to SmackDown Live, Raw had to create a new belt to head the brand, and so the all-red belt was introduced at SummerSlam, with Finn Balor being the inaugural holder.

Brock Lesnar held that particular title since April 2017 all the way up until last month, where Roman Reigns finally dethroned the 'Beast Incarnate'.

The WWE title has seen it's fair share of holders since the split, with Ambrose, AJ Styles, John Cena, Bray Wyatt, Randy Orton and Jinder Mahal all carrying the belt at some point of the previous two years.

And a Reddit user by the name of DanTheStripe worked out that since the Brand Split took place, there's been a worrying trend when it comes to co-branded pay-per-views and the WWE title.

That trend is that it has never been the main event of a card since Raw and SmackDown became separate entities once again, that's over two years and not one main event.

There's even been special events where a non-title match has gone on last over the Championship.

For example at the 2016 SummerSlam and WrestleMania 33 in 2017, both Dean Ambrose versus Dolph Ziggler and Bray Wyatt against Randy Orton were pushed down the card, and favoured were bouts between Orton and Brock Lesnar, and The Undertaker and Roman Reigns respectively.

More recently at Extreme Rules, whilst then-Universal Champ Lesnar was inactive, an Intercontinental title match between Ziggler and Seth Rollins went on last, whilst AJ Styles and Rusev simply had to make-do with the second-to-last bout on the card.

What does this tell you then? Probably that Vince McMahon simply thinks that SmackDown isn't that important compared to Raw.

But when Fox Sports takes over the rights to SmackDown Live in October 2019, they must be expecting the belt to play a prominent role within the company after paying a substantial fee for the rights, instead of it being consigned to the support act like it has been for the last two years.

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