![]() Nine men in history have held the championship for a continuous reign of one year (365 days) or more: Bruno Sammartino (who achieved the feat on two occasions), Pedro Morales, Bob Backlund, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, John Cena, CM Punk, AJ Styles and Roman Reigns. The champion with the single longest reign is Bruno Sammartino with a reign of 2,803 days while the record for longest combined reign is also held by Sammartino at 4,040. The first champion was Buddy Rogers, who was awarded the championship in 1963. Despite it being billed as a unification match, both titles remain independently active with Reigns being called the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion.Īs of May 29, 2023, there have been 146 recognized reigns between 54 recognized champions and 11 recognized vacancies (there are 4 reigns, 2 people, and 2 vacancies that are not recognized by the WWE). He won the title by defeating previous champion Brock Lesnar in a Winner Takes All match to unify the WWE Championship and Universal Championship, which Reigns defended, on April 3 2022, at WrestleMania 38 in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex city of Arlington, Texas. Roman Reigns is the current champion in his fourth reign. Some reigns were held by champions using a ring name while others use their real name. The championship is generally contested in professional wrestling matches, in which participants execute scripted finishes rather than contend in direct competition. Under the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship moniker, the title was moved to SmackDown in the 2023 draft and Raw established a new World Heavyweight Championship as an alternative title. Since April 2022, the title has represented one-half of the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, with the other half represented by the Universal Championship, but both titles have retained their individual lineages. In December 2016, WWE again shortened the title's name back to WWE Championship. It became designated to the SmackDown brand and WWE again established an alternate world title known as the WWE Universal Championship for the Raw brand. On June 27, 2016, the name was shortened back to the WWE Championship, before assuming the WWE World Championship name on July 26, when the brand extension returned. When WWE Champion Randy Orton defeated World Heavyweight Champion John Cena at the TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs pay-per-view event on December 15, 2013, the World Heavyweight Championship was unified with the WWE Championship, resulting in the retiring of the former, as well as the renaming of the latter to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. It was vacated and decommissioned when the ECW brand disbanded in 2010. A third alternate world title, the ECW World Heavyweight Championship, was reactivated for the ECW brand in 2006. ![]() The title, now renamed the WWE Championship, was then designated to the SmackDown brand while WWE established an alternate world title known as the World Heavyweight Championship for the Raw brand. ![]() In 2002, the WWF was renamed World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and split its roster into two brands, Raw and SmackDown. ![]() It was the first world title established in WWE, at the time known as the World Wide Wrestling Federation (In 2001, it was unified with the World Championship and became the Undisputed WWF Championship. The WWE Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in WWE, currently defended on the SmackDown brand. Four-time and current champion Roman Reigns
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