Roman Reigns has passed an incredible new milestone as his Universal Championship reign shows no sign of coming to an end any time soon.
The Head of the Table, and self-proclaimed “needle mover” Roman Reigns won the Universal Championship for a second time at WWE Payback on August 30th, 2020. At the time no one could have predicted the level of dominance that would follow, or indeed that the dominance would still be showing no sign of stopping.
In fact, Roman Reigns has now surpassed 500 days as Universal Champion bringing him within touching distance of Brock Lesnar’s staggering record of 503 days as champion.
Since overcoming ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman on that summer night in 2020, Reigns has conquered all before him, including some of the biggest names in recent WWE history.
The tale of the tape shows that there have been 18 title defences in that period against 11 different opponents, across multiple continents.
5️⃣ 0️⃣ 0️⃣ Days of acknowledging our #UniversalChampion@WWERomanReigns. pic.twitter.com/32gA2tDe7r
— WWE (@WWE) January 13, 2022
Reigns’ most recent defence came against Sami Zayn on the December 3rd episode of SmackDown, but it was merely a formality after Brock Lesnar had decimated the challenger. His last real defence came against Lesnar at WWE Crown Jewel in October via a little bit of help from the Usos.
The Tribal Chief had been scheduled to defend his title against Lesnar once again at Day 1 on January 1st, but the match was cancelled following Reigns’ testing positive for COVID-19. In Reigns’ absence, Lesnar was added to the WWE Championship match, which he promptly won.
With natural challenger Lesnar out of the picture, at least for now, it has been announced that Reigns will defend his title against Seth Freakin’ Rollins at the Royal Rumble. Meanwhile, Brock Lesnar will defend his WWE Championship against Bobby Lashley.