How long should we expect Roman Reigns to hold WWE’s top title in the new year and beyond?
After a tumultuous 2015, Roman Reigns will walk into 2016 with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. This comes after winning the Royal Rumble match, losing at WrestleMania 31, and being cashed in on by Sheamus. The former Shield man would eventually win the title off the Celtic Warrior on an episode of Raw with Vince McMahon present.
Fans knew it was inevitable that Reigns would capture the top belt. WWE sees him as their next headliner and were giving him an immediate push to the top. However, it’s the question of how long he will hold the championship in 2016.
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Reigns could actually drop the belt on the Jan. 4 edition of Raw since he’s defending against Sheamus with McMahon as the special guest referee. He may not be able to overcome the odds of the people in the ring and potentially the ones outside of the ring. More than likely, though, the former college football player will retain.
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After that, a title defense against Triple H at WWE Royal Rumble could be possible. Reigns put The Game out of action at WWE TLC with multiple chair shots, an elbow through a table, and a vicious spear. He has not been seen since but the Chairman vowed that the Cerebral Assassin would get his revenge.
This is another situation where Reigns would go over and set him up for his first WrestleMania title defense. It’s just a matter of who faces him.
After Raw went off the air, WWE teased a showdown between Reigns and John Cena for the Show of Shows. This would be the latest “passing of the torch” match after The Rock did the same for Cena at WrestleMania 28 and 29. Hulk Hogan and Rock did this at WrestleMania X-8 as well.
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In a match like this, the younger star always goes over, so expect Roman to walk out of WrestleMania 32 as WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
From there, things get interesting. There could seemingly be no end in sight for a title reign with no clear-cut challengers present, barring WWE builds someone up. The next one in line who has a legitimate shot would be Seth Rollins, who won’t be back until the mid-late summer this year due to multiple torn knee ligaments.
After Rollins got hurt, rumors circulated that Reigns was expected to win the title from him at WWE Survivor Series. They two were booked in a one on one match to main event the show. If that’s the case, having the Architect challenge and win the belt from Reigns after returning may not be in the cards.
If Reigns clears out Rollins, then the path for a title reign is wide open. It could last through the fall, into the winter and enter 2017, which seems likely. Entering next year with the belt would set Reigns up to break CM Punk’s modern-day WWE Championship hold of 434 days. He set this from Nov. 20, 2011, to Jan. 27, 2013. To break the record, Reigns would need to go from Dec. 14, 2015, to approximately Feb. 23, 2017. Obviously, it’s a very long time away.
This isn’t crazy to think that this mark could be broken, though.
The reasoning is simple because we just saw this done last year. Nikki Bella set the record for the longest reign as WWE Divas Champion in Sept., breaking AJ Lee’s mark. WWE took the title off the Total Divas star days after she broke the record.
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For fans who don’t know, AJ is the real-life husband of Punk. The MMA fighter in training had a well-documented breakup with WWE in early 2014 when he departed the company one night after the Royal Rumble. Multiple legal suits later, and the problem still isn’t solved between the two sides.
AJ would continue to work with WWE for about fifteen months before “retiring” days after WrestleMania 31. She had teamed with Paige to defeat The Bella Twins inside Levi’s Stadium. Apparently, no one was aware that she was set to leave WWE so soon. Her standing within the company had to of been awkward, though, with her husband and WWE doctor Chris Amann going through lawsuits.
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So, months later, WWE used Nikki’s title reign to remove AJ from the top of their record books. Doing the same with Punk wouldn’t be surprising.
Roman Reigns won’t be threatening Punk’s record until Nov. or Dec. of this year. If his title reign makes it until then, the notion of him becoming the modern day longest reigning WWE Champion would be correct.