Roman Reigns Surpasses CM Punk Record

Roman Reigns smashed the glass ceiling for modern WWE Superstars when he surpassed 1,000 days as Universal Champion but now he’s sailed past CM Punk in the history books as well.

The days of thousand-day title reigns seemed to be something consigned to generations long ago in WWE but Roman Reigns as The Tribal Chief has reinvented the game and ruled SmackDown with an iron fist for over 1,000 days as Universal Champion.

In recent years John Cena and AJ Styles have both held the WWE Championship for over a year but the only other man to hold the title for over 400 days and not make it to 1,000 was AEW star CM Punk, but now Roman Reigns has even overtaken him.

Reigns has now held the WWE Championship for 435 days, breaking Punk’s record of 434 days that he set between November 2011 and January 2013 when he lost his title to The Rock.

Pedro Morales, Bob Backlund, Hulk Hogan, and Bruno Sammartino are the only stars in company history to have held the WWE Championship for 1,000 days. Sammartino achieved the feat twice and he and Backlund are the only men to have held the title for over 2,000 days.

Some fans were concerned that the lineage of the WWE and Universal Championships could become murky following Roman Reigns being given a new WWE Universal Championship belt which seemingly signified that the titles are now unified and will not be defended separately.

Roman Reigns might well have overtaken CM Punk’s record earlier but Reigns, along with Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose debuted as The Shield in WWE at Survivor Series 2012 to help Punk retain his title against Ryback and Cena.