The biggest match in WWE history took place on Sunday night, and Roman Reigns came out on top. In the main event of WrestleMania 38, Reigns, the Universal Champion, defeated WWE Champion Brock Lesnar in a winner takes all match. Reigns is now the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion as both titles have been unified.
Reigns has been Universal Champion for 576 days, which is a record for the title. He won the belt on Aug. 30, 2020, at Payback and has never looked back. In his career, Reigns has won the Universal Championship twice and the WWE Championship three times before Sunday. And with him also being a former United States, Intercontinental and Tag Team Champion, Reigns is the 17th Grand Slam Champion in WWE history.
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“I think the most obvious thing is how the roles have reversed and how the whole dynamic has shifted one-eighty,” Reigns told Steel Chair in October about his rivalry with Lesnar. “The direction of where each personality has been, and where it is going, all the way through to the alliance of Paul Heyman – everything has changed with me and Brock. In the past, Brock was probably the most prestigious Universal Champion we have had, definitely in terms of Title reign – but that pales into comparison against what I have been able to achieve in the last year and a half. Being a full-time performer and being able to showcase weekly on Smackdown, and then every month, and sometimes more, being able to defend that Title on every major pay-per-view from the Big-Four down, has made a big difference to where we are both at.”
Lesnar returned to WWE in August for SummerSlam after being away from the company for over the year. Since then, Lensar has won the WWE Championship twice and has won the title a total of seven times in his career. Before Sunday, “The Beast Incarnate” has won the Universal Championship there times, King of the Ring and the Royal Rumble match twice. He is also the first person to beat The Undertaker at WrestleMania.
“Had my first wrestling match in a garage in front of no people, and 20 years later I’m WWE universal champion of the world, wrestling in front of no people,” Lesnar told the New York Post about possibly retiring after his match at WrestleMania 36 in 2020. “So I came full circle. I had 20 years as an athlete, as an entertainer, and I was OK with it. The pandemic hits, and my contract was up, and so in my mind, I was retired and just settling into it. I grew my beard out, grew my hair out. This wasn’t some master plan. I just kind of went off the map and was OK with it.”
