WWE Universal Championship

The **WWE Universal Championship** was a professional wrestling world championship in WWE, which was created in 2016. From 2023 to 2024, it was defended together with the WWE Championship as the **Undisputed WWE Universal Championship**. The first champion was Finn Bálor, while the last recognized champion was Roman Reigns, who held the title for more than one thousand days.

### Creation

With the return of the WWE Brand Extension in the middle of 2016, a draft took place on July 19. WWE Champion Dean Ambrose was drafted to _SmackDown_. And as a result, _Raw_ was left without a world title. On the July 25, 2016 episode of _Raw_, Stephanie McMahon and the general manager Mick Foley created the WWE Universal Championship to be the world title of the program. The first champion was determined at SummerSlam on August 21, 2016. Finn Bálor beat Seth Rollins to win the title. He gave up the title the following day because he was injured during the match.

In October 2019, the title was moved to _SmackDown_ after "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt, who was on _SmackDown_ at that time, won the title from _Raw_<nowiki/>'s Seth Rollins.

### Undisputed WWE Universal Championship and retirement

At WrestleMania 38 Night 2 on April 3, 2022, SmackDown's Universal Champion Roman Reigns defeated WWE Champion Brock Lesnar in a Winner Takes All match to win both championships and become the **Undisputed WWE Universal Champion**. WWE called the match a championship unification match; however, both titles's histories are still seperately active with Reigns being a double champion, defending both titles together across both brands as the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. On the April 24, 2023, episode of _Raw_, WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H announced that regardless of what brand Reigns was drafted to in the 2023 WWE Draft, he and his undisputed championship would become exclusive to that brand. Triple H then presented a new World Heavyweight Championship for the other brand, which was won by Seth "Freakin" Rollins at Night of Champions. Reigns was drafted to SmackDown and the World Heavyweight Championship became exclusive to Raw. On the June 2, 2023, episode of _SmackDown_, Triple H gave Reigns a new singular championship belt to represent the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. Despite this, Reigns' manager Paul Heyman continued to carry the old WWE and Universal Championship belts until the end of July. After Cody Rhodes won the championships from Reigns in a Bloodline Rules match at WrestleMania XL Night 2 on April 7, 2024, the championship was retired.

## Reigns

|Reign|
| --- |
|The reign number for the specific champion listed|
|The city in which the title was won|
|The event promoted by the respective promotion in which the title was won|
|Number of days held as listed by the promotion|
|Championship change is not listed by the promotion|
|Reign was shorter than a day|
|data-sort-type="number"||width="12%"|Wrestler|Reign|width=12%|Date|data-sort-type="number"|Days held|Days recog.|width="13%"|Location|width=10%|Event|width=80% class="unsortable"|Notes|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|Finn Bálor|1|||<|New York, NY|SummerSlam|align="left"|Beat Seth Rollins in a pinfall and submission-only match to become the first champion.||||||||
||Vacated|—||colspan="2"|—|New York, NY|_Raw_|align="left"|Vacated after Finn Bálor got a shoulder injury during the match at SummerSlam.|||||||
|Kevin Owens|1||colspan="2"||Houston, TX|_Raw_|align="left"|This was a elimination match, also involving Big Cass, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins.||||||||
|Goldberg|1|||27|Milwaukee, WI|Fastlane|align="left"|||||||||
|Brock Lesnar|1||504|503|Orlando, FL|WrestleMania 33|align="left"|||||||||
|Roman Reigns|1|August 19, 2018|64|63|Brooklyn, NY|SummerSlam||||||||||
||Vacated|—|October 22, 2018|—||Providence, RI|_Raw_|align=left|Vacated after Roman Reigns got leukemia.|||||||
|Brock Lesnar|2|November 2, 2018|colspan="2"|156|Riyadh, Saudi Arabia|Crown Jewel|align=left|Beat Braun Strowman to win the vacant title.||||||||
|Seth Rollins|1|April 7, 2019|colspan="2"|98|East Rutherford, NJ|WrestleMania 35||||||||||
|Brock Lesnar|3|July 14, 2019|28|27|Pittsburgh, PA|Extreme Rules|align=left|Cashed in his Money in the Bank contract on Seth Rollins||||||||
|Seth Rollins|2|August 11, 2019|81|80|Toronto, Canada|SummerSlam||||||||||
|The Fiend (Bray Wyatt)|1|October 31, 2019|119|118|rowspan="2"|Riyadh, Saudi Arabia|Crown Jewel|This was a Falls Count Anywhere match that could not be stopped for any reason. The title became exclusive to the SmackDown brand because of Wyatt's status as a SmackDown wrestler.||||||||
|Goldberg|2|February 27, 2020|27–28|37|Super Show-Down|WWE lists the end of Goldberg's reign on April 3, 2020, when the match aired on tape delay.||||||||||
|Braun Strowman|1|March 25 or 26, 2020|150–151|141|rowspan="3"|Orlando, FL|WrestleMania 36|WWE lists the start of Strowman's reign on April 3, 2020, when the match aired on tape delay||||||||
|The Fiend (Bray Wyatt)|2|August 23, 2020|7|6|SummerSlam|||||||||||
|Roman Reigns|2|August 30, 2020|colspan="2"||Payback|align="left"|This was a triple threat match, also involving Braun Strowman. At WrestleMania 38 Night 2 on April 3, 2022, Reigns defeated WWE Champion Brock Lesnar to win the title. Both championships together began being called "Undisputed WWE Universal Championship". This is the fifth-longest world championship reign in WWE history, and the longest reign for any WWE championship since 1988.|||||||||
|†|Cody Rhodes|—|April 7, 2024|378|rowspan="2"|—|rowspan="2"|Philadelphia, PA|rowspan="2"|WrestleMania XL|align="left"|This was a Bloodline Rules match in which Reigns also defended the WWE Championship. Rhodes won the title as a member of the Raw brand and was then drafted to SmackDown. The official title history originally listed Rhodes as champion until Rhodes lost the title at WrestleMania 41 the following year.||||
|—|Deactivated|—|April 7, 2024|—|align="left"|The Universal Championship was retired and the WWE Championship was continued instead. Cody Rhodes was not listed as champion anymore, as Roman Reigns is now listed as the last champion instead.||||||||||

## Combined reigns

|<1|||
| --- | --- | --- |
|style="background-color:#bbeeff;text-align:center;"|¤|The exact length of at least one title reign is unknown, so the shortest length is listed.|
|Reign was shorter than a day|||
|Rank|Wrestler|No. of reigns|Combined days|Combined days rec. by WWE|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||2|1,380|1,379||
||3|688|686||
|—||1|378|—|
||1|188|||
||2|179|178||
||1|¤150|141||
||2|126|124||
||2|¤55|64||
||1|1|<1||

## Infobox (pro wrestling championship)

- **name**: WWE Universal Championship
- **image**: Cody Rhodes, Wrestlemania XL in 2024 6.jpg
- **caption**: Cody Rhodes with the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship belt that represented both the Universal and WWE Championship, WWE Championships (2023–2024).
- **promotion**: WWE
- **retired**: WrestleMania XL, April 7, 2024
- **created**: July 25, 2016
- **firstchamp**: Finn Bálor
- **finalchamp**: Roman Reigns
- **mostreigns**: Brock Lesnar
(3 reigns)
- **longestreign**: Roman Reigns
(2nd reign, 1,316 days)
- **shortestreign**: Finn Bálor
(1 day)
- **oldest**: Bill Goldberg, Goldberg
()
- **youngest**: Kevin Owens
()
- **heaviest**: Braun Strowman
()
- **lightest**: Finn Bálor
()
- **pastnames**: * **WWE Universal Championship**
(2016–2024)
* Undisputed WWE Universal Championship
(2022–2024)
* **Undisputed WWE Universal Championship**
(2024–2024)