The old adage says that records are made to be broken. That’s true in WWE as well, even with the outcome of matches predetermined. In some ways, long title reigns are even more important in this context, since it means WWE has faith in you to be a champion for an extended period of time.
For Roman Reigns, that’s definitely proven to be the case. He’s passed one year as the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, but his really impressive feat has come from holding one title in particular: the WWE Universal Championship.
Reigns first claimed that belt on Aug. 30, 2020 at Payback in Orlando, pinning Braun Strowman as part of a No Holds Barred triple threat match that also featured defending champion Bray Wyatt (as his alter ego, The Fiend). The leader of the Bloodline is now approaching three years of uninterrupted time as Universal Champion.
That’s put him in spitting distance of two impressive marks: a 1,000-day reign, and entry into the top five longest WWE title reigns of all time. While Reigns is already undoubtedly a future WWE Hall of Famer, catching the men still ahead of him would assure his status as an all-time great. As one of his old catchphrases went, believe that.
So how long will it be until he passes the legends in the top 5? We’ve done the math to answer that question.
Reigns would pass Pedro Morales on June 23, 2023
Morales held the WWWF Championship from February 1971 to December 1973, which was pretty impressive. He sometimes gets forgotten as his run came between two longer ones by a name you’ll see twice in just a moment.
Reigns would pass Bruno Sammartino for the first time on Jan. 19, 2024
“First time” is the key part of that sentence, because Sammartino held the WWWF Championship even longer in the late 1960s. This would require Reigns to hold onto the Universal title through Royal Rumble 2024.
Reigns would pass Hulk Hogan on Sep. 12, 2024
Guess this means no matchup with The Rock at WrestleMania 40. Jokes aside, however, making it to No. 3 on the all time list would require Reigns to make it through not just Mania next year but SummerSlam as well.
Reigns would pass Bob Backlund on July 6, 2026
We’re getting a bit silly here, but this would take place on the Raw right after July 4 weekend three years from now. There’s just a huge gap between Hogan and Backlund, who held his title so long it was renamed whole doing so — and not without some controversy to his reign and whether it actually was uninterrupted.
Reigns would pass Bruno Sammartino again on May 3, 2028
Well, Bloodline fans can always dream, we suppose. Reigns would be closing in on his 43rd birthday if he somehow makes it to this point. It doesn’t seem very likely, but you could easily have said the same thing about him even making it this far back when he was the muscle of The Shield, so … you never know, at least for now.