The WHEI Universal Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship created and promoted by War Hawks Entertainment Inc. on the Raw brand. It is one of three world titles for WHEI's brands, alongside the WHEI Championship on the SmackDown brand and the LWL World Heavyweight Championship on the LWL brand. The current champion is Tomasso Ciampa in his first reign as champion.
The title was created following the real life reintroduction of WWE's brand split and the subsequent introduction of their Universal Championship. This subsequently retired the Big Gold Belt they had been using as a world title previously. The title, much like its real life counterpart, was brought in to be the world title for the Raw brand in season 2, and stayed that way for season 3.
Origin
Named after the WWE Universe in real life, the championship was created to be a replacement in universe to the World Heavyweight Championship which, while several people liked, many felt needed to be retired. The championship had to be created in game for season 2 as it had been introduced too late to be in the actual game. This was rectified in season 3.
Championship Belt design
Despite not liking the look of it, Juggernaut decided to stick with the current design rather than make on of his own or download one. As with the WHEI WWE Championship and its real life conterpart, the title is designed almost identical to the WWE Championship. With the exception being the background and strap is all red to represent its exclusiveness to the Raw Brand. The swoosh under the logo is also black.
The title consists of a large cut out of the WWE logo (encrusted with diamonds), inside a large irregular heptagonal plate. The words Universal Champion appear in small font under the logo in capital letters along the bottom edges. As with the WHEI WWE Championship the default side plates consist of the WWE logo inside a red globe. However these can be changed out to the champion's logo in lieu of a nameplate.
Reigns
| No. | Wrestler | Reign | Date | Event | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniel Bryan | 1 | May 26, 2017 | Season 2 Draft | Awarded the championship to be the default champion of season 2. Wound up being the ONLY champion of season 2. |
| 2 | Samoa Joe | 1 | April 10, 2018 | Season 3 Draft | Awarded the championship to be the default champion of season 3. |
| 3 | Shinsuke Nakamura | 1 | August 26, 2018 | SummerSlam | Defeated Joe at SummerSlam to win the title. |
| 4 | Samoa Joe | 2 | September 9, 2018 | Unforgiven | Defeated Nakamura to win the title at Unforgiven in a surprisingly short match. |
| 5 | Shinsuke Nakamura | 2 | October 7, 2018 | Monday Night Raw | Defeated Joe in a rematch to win the title, the title match at Hell In A Cell subsequently became a triple threat match. |
| 6 | Tomasso Ciampa | 1 | January 29, 2019 | Armageddon (2018) | Defeated Nakamura to win the title in the main event. |