First Finalist Confirmed In WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament

Raw in Jacksonville, Florida saw the first finalist emerge in the tournament to crown a new WWE World Heavyweight Champion which will culminate at Night of Champions.

Ahead of the WWE Draft, Triple H announced that whichever brand did not end up with Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns would instead be represented by a new WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

SmackDown kept Reigns so Raw will have the new champion on Monday nights. However, eyebrows were raised when just days after the draft was complete it emerged that SmackDown stars will be a part of the tournament to crown the new champion.

On the 8th of May edition of Raw, the tournament kicked off with two huge triple threat matches. Seth Rollins was able to overcome both Damian Priest and Shinsuke Nakamura while Finn Balor managed to get past The Miz and Cody Rhodes. The American Nightmare’s path to title glory was stopped in its tracks once again thanks to outside interference as Brock Lesnar attacked Rhodes one night after losing to him at Backlash.

That left Finn Balor and Seth Rollins to battle it out to make it to Night of Champions in a repeat of the match from SummerSlam 2016 to crown the first-ever Universal Champion. It was the Irish star who won on that occasion but this time it was Rollins who emerged victorious. Rollins will find out his Night of Champions opponent when the other finalist is decided on SmackDown.