So, it was ‘revealed’ last Monday that because of ‘contract issues’ with Brock Lesnar, the huge multi-man #1 Contender’s match scheduled for Extreme Rules has been scrapped, though why Lesnar refusing to do his job should scrap a match is a little beyond me, but there you go. So once again, we’re faced with the fact that RAW has a bunch of main event level talent and no top title to go for because of things and issues only understood by Vince McMahon, who has twice balked at taking the title off of Lesnar at the very last minute.

So, what’s to be done? Personally, I would’ve stripped Lesnar of the title by now, but that’s me. I also would’ve had him drop the title to Reigns at Greatest Royal Rumble and save us all a lot of trouble, but, again, that’s me. Let’s look at some scenarios.

1. Strip him of the title. This is what I would do and it’s what they did to Chyna back in 2001 in a similar real life situation. She refused to drop the title and so WWE stripped her of the belt and declared it vacant. Since this ‘contractual issue’ is likely a work, this would protect Brock for whatever they’re protecting him for and gets the Universal Title back on RAW.
2. Make him compete. Since WWE is still Brock’s employer, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to make him compete, no matter what the contract says.
3. Have Strowman cash in. Personally, this is the idea I like the least. I’m not a Strowman fan and I think that having him as champion for longer than a month would be a disaster, but it would be a way to get the belt off of Brock without hurting him too much, if Strowman were to do it in a surprise cash in.
4. Have Lesnar vacate the title. I honestly can’t see this happening, but having Heyman come to RAW and announce that since no one can beat Lesnar, Lesnar sees no reason to stay in WWE and leaves the title. This would leave Lesnar free to return to UFC without being beaten and gives WWE a chance to put the title on someone else. They did this with Asuka, for better or worse, in NXT. It’s not an ideal solution, but each side would get a win out of it.
5. Scrap the Universal Title and come up with something else. I think its safe to say that the Universal Title hasn’t fared very well on RAW, between looking like they just grabbed a prototype of the re-born Women’s Championship and slapped a new name on it, to a series of lackluster title reigns, including the first champion only holding the title 24 hours before vacating it due to a shoulder injury. At this point, WWE might just be better off retiring the Universal Title and coming up with a new title. Taz did this with his FTW championship that ended up being a huge hit with fans. Maybe dig up the World Heavyweight Championship, Big Gold never goes out of style.

I don’t know what WWE is doing in this situation. It seems that they’re trying to generate so much dislike for Lesnar before and if he does go back to UFC that fans won’t mind who beats him for the title. Bottom line, something needs to be done about the Universal Title, WWE has too many top tier level guys to justify not having a full time champion. They need to either find a way for Lesnar to NOT be champion anymore or come up with something else. Something’s got to give.