Roman Reigns Hits Unexpected Milestone As WWE Champion

 Roman Reigns’ WWE world championship reign officially reached 800 days on Tuesday after he successfully defended the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship against Logan Paul at Saturday’s Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia. Reigns’ dominance over WWE’s main event scene began in 2020 when he won the Universal Championship at Payback just one week after returning from hiatus at SummerSlam 2020. With his new “Tribal Chief” persona and Paul Heyman at his side, he began to rack up successful title defenses — beating Jey Uso, Braun Strowman, Kevin Owens, Daniel Bryan, Edge, Cesaro, Rey Mysterio, John Cena, Finn Balor, Brock Lesnar, Sami Zayn, Seth Rollins, Goldberg, Matt Riddle, Drew McIntyre and Logan. 

One of his defenses against Lesnar saw him unify the Universal and WWE Championships and all the while he built up his Bloodline faction that now consists of Heyman, The Usos, Solo Sikoa and Zayn. But while Reigns now has the longest WWE world championship reign in modern WWE history, he still has quite a few milestones to surpass before he can claim to have the longest championship reign in WWE history.

Roman Reigns’ Undisputed WWE Universal Championship Reign

The next title reign “The Tribal Chief” will surpass is one from recent WWE history — Walter’s (now going by Gunther) 870-day reign as NXT United Kingdom Champion. He’ll pass that number on Jan. 18, 2023, just under two weeks before the 2023 Royal Rumble. Next up is The Glamour Girls’ 906-day reign with the WWF World Women’s Tag Team Championships, followed by Pedro Morales’ 1027 days as WWWF World Heavyweight Champion. Reigns will hit that number in late June 2023, so if he can manage to walk out of WrestleMania 39 with the title he’ll likely have the fifth-longest WWE world championship reign in history.

The only men ahead of him at that point will Bob Backlund (1,470 days), Hulk Hogan (1,474 days) and Bruno Sammartino (1,237 days and 2,803 days across two separate reigns). While the odds of him surpassing those men are slim, it still puts him among the all-time greats. 

Roman Reigns vs. The Rock at WrestleMania 39

But in order for Reigns to even reach 1,000 days, he’ll need to escape WrestleMania with the title. The big rumored match for that show is the long-awaited dream match between Reigns and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. 

While neither man has outright confirmed the match is happening, Johnson did recently make waves by claiming in interviews that he is in fact “The Head of the Table.” Do you think Reigns will beat The Rock if and when the match happens? Let us know in the comments!