Every Title Change That Happened At WrestleMania 38

The crowning of new champions at WrestleMania is inevitable. Some of wrestling’s most famed championship reigns have both began and ended at ‘The Grandest Stage Of Them All’, from The Ultimate Warrior becoming the dual WWF World Heavyweight and Intercontinental Champion to Seth Rollins emphatically cashing in his Money in the Bank contract, robbing Brock Lesnar of his WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

WrestleMania 38 was no different, boasting a total of six title contests. Although RK-Bro, Charlotte Flair, and The Usos would retain the Raw Tag Team, SmackDown Women’s, and SmackDown Tag Team Championships, respectively, there were a handful of title changes from the thirty-eighth instalment of ‘The Show of Shows’, as the WWE Championship, the Raw Women’s Championship, and the Women’s Tag Team Championships both changed hands.

WrestleMania Saturday

The sole title change from WrestleMania Saturday saw Bianca Belair dethrone Becky Lynch of the Raw Women’s Championship. Belair and Lynch were credited with having the best match of the entire WrestleMania weekend, working a hot nineteen-minute clash that concluded when Belair executed her patented K.O.D finisher to end Lynch’s title reign.

‘Big Time Becks’ had reigned as champion for 162 days, though she was also the SmackDown Women’s Champion for 62 days prior to her and Charlotte Flair switching titles during the 2021 WWE Draft. Ironically enough, Becky had controversially defeated Bianca in just 26 seconds to win the blue brand’s championship at the 2021 SummerSlam pay-per-view in her return from pregnancy.

Her second consecutive ‘Mania title win marks Bianca’s first run as Raw Women’s Champion. She won the SmackDown Women’s Championship in the main event of WrestleMania 37 last April, defeating Sasha Banks in another well-received contest that marked the first time two black women had headlined WrestleMania. The match ultimately won the 2021 ESPY Award for Best WWE Moment.

WrestleMania Sunday

New champions were also crowned in WWE’s women’s tag team division, as Naomi and Sasha Banks became the new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions in a four-team encounter on WrestleMania Sunday. Carmella and Queen Zelina were the defending champions coming into the weekend, with the teams of Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan, and Natalya and Shayna Baszler making up the numbers for the match.

Carmella and Zelina had reigned as champions for 132 days after dethroning Rhea Ripley and Nikki A.S.H last November, making them just the second longest-reigning Women’s Tag Team Champions after The Kabuki Warriors at a recognised 171 days.

Although the win marks the first reign for Naomi and Sasha as a team, ‘The Legit Boss’ is a former two-time champion alongside Bayley, with the former Boss’n’Hug Connection also being the inaugural champions after winning an Elimination Chamber match in February 2019. With the title victory, Sasha Banks also broke her WrestleMania losing streak, having lost at every ‘Mania since WrestleMania 32 in 2016, bar WrestleMania 34 which she missed.

In the biggest title switch of the weekend, however, Roman Reigns defeated Brock Lesnar to officially become the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion. Both Roman’s Universal Championship and Brock’s WWE Championship were defended in the main event of WrestleMania Sunday, although no singular championship was unveiled for the winner of the match, as had been expected.

Coming into the match, Reigns was celebrating 581 days as the Universal Championship, having captured the title from ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt at the 2020 Payback event. As for Brock Lesnar, his 43 day reign as WWE Champion began at the Elimination Chamber event in Saudi Arabia, where he regained the title from Bobby Lashley in the titular match.

The win marks Roman Reigns’ fourth run with the WWE Championship, though surprisingly, it’s his first since he dropped it to Seth Rollins at the 2016 Money in the Bank pay-per-view. In other words, bar a few weeks, Roman Reigns hasn’t been WWE Champion since Cody Rhodes was last on the payroll. He enjoyed 77 days as the champion during that reign, which, coincidentally, also began at AT&T Stadium at ‘Mania 32.