Roman Reigns Reaches 1,000 Days As Universal Champion

Back on the 30th of August 2020, few could have foreseen the run Roman Reigns was about to embark on when he captured the Universal Championship from The Fiend Bray Wyatt but The Tribal Chief had other ideas.

Since then Roman Reigns has defended his championship 28 times – an average of every 35 days – defeating the likes of Braun Strowman, Kevin Owens, Daniel Bryan, Edge, Cesaro, Rey Mysterio, John Cena, Finn Balor, Brock Lesnar, Goldberg, Matt Riddle, Logan Paul, Sami Zayn, Cody Rhodes, and of course, Jey Uso on his way to writing his name into the record books.

Only four men in WWE history had held a world title – in their case the WWE Championship – longer than 1,000 days before Roman Reigns. Bruno Sammartino achieved the feat twice with his first reign as WWE Champion still far and away the longest in history at 2,803 days. Bob Backlund is the only other man that WWE recognizes as having a reign of over 2,000 days while Hulk Hogan and Pedro Morales both managed over 1,000 days as champion.

Hogan was the last man before Reigns to achieve the milestone with his first reign as WWE Champion which began in January 1984 and ended in controversial fashion in February 1988 at 1,474 days. If Roman Reigns can hang on to his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship for just another 28 days, he will overtake Morales and lay claim to the fifth-longest world title reign in company history.

Interestingly, his 1,000 days as Universal Champion also marks Reigns’ 419th day as WWE Champion following him unifying the titles at WrestleMania 38. In just 16 days, Reigns will surpass CM Punk’s 434-day reign as champion, allowing Reigns the opportunity to lay claim to the longest WWE Title run of the modern era as well.