Roman Reigns Achieves Impressive WWE Champion Milestone
Roman Reigns surpassed the 1000-day mark in his Championship reign not too long ago, but now he's passed yet another impressive WWE milestone. As of today, Reigns' Universal Championship reign has extended to 1,028 days and has now put him past WWE Champion Pedro Morales' impressive reign. Morales' time as Champion clocked in at 1,027 days, placing Reigns fourth on the longest-reigning WWE World Championship list. Reigns is now only behind Hulk Hogan, Bob Backlund, and Bruno Sammartino on that list, though he's actually fifth if you are counting the Title reigns individually and not by superstar.
That's because Sammartino has two entries on the longest Title reigns list, with his first coming in at 1,237 days. That number seems quite attainable if Reigns isn't losing for a while, and though the level of difficulty rises with Hulk Hogan's reign of 1,474 days, that still seems possible. It's the top two that could take some work.
Second on the all-time list is Bob Backlund, who held the title for a lengthy 2,135 days. Things get even more difficult with Sammartino's next Title reign, which lasted for 2,803 days. Reigns has already entered elite company in terms of his Title reign, but we'll see if he can move up to the top.
While The Bloodline has taken some damage lately from within the group, Reigns, Solo Sikoa, and Paul Heyman are still occupying the island of relevancy. It's amazing to think back to when Reigns wasn't this dominant force in WWE, and in a recent appearance on Rick Rubin's Tetragrammaton podcast, Heyman revealed how he ended up paired with Reigns and how he thought it wouldn't happen.
"So Vince (McMahon) calls me in the middle of August and he says, 'We're gonna take you back into television. I'm thinking, 'Oh, oh. He's gonna make me a commentator and Jim Ross isn't here. What is a commentator in 2020? How can I be disruptive? How can I be evolutionary in the process? How can I redefine this role because I don't just want to settle in and do what's been done already?' Even by me, I want to do this differently," Heyman said.
"I said, 'Okay, well, what do you got in mind?' He says, 'I'm going to put you with somebody.' I'm thinking, 'Has he read my contract?' I said, 'Well, you know Vince, the options are kind of limited in that.' I'm trying to tiptoe into a delicate situation here where I'm about to butt heads with him. I'm thinking Ronda is pregnant. Brock's not coming back with Saudi down. He's certainly is not putting me with Roman and he goes, 'I'm envisioning Roman Reigns with Paul Heyman,'" Heyman continued. "I'm thinking, 'Oh my God. He's gonna pull the trigger on this. He would never pull it with Cena. He would never have allowed Cena to come to the dark side," Heyman said.
The rest is history, and we could very well see Reigns moving past even more of WWE's greatest Champions before his run is over.