List of current champions in WWE
At the top of WWE's championship hierarchy are the WWE Universal Championship on Raw and the WWE Championship on SmackDown. The Universal Championship is held by record two-time champion Brock Lesnar, who won the vacant title by defeating Braun Strowman at Crown Jewel on November 2, 2018; previous champion Roman Reigns had to relinquish the title due to illness (leukemia). The WWE Champion is Daniel Bryan, who is in his fourth reign. He won the title on the November 13, 2018, episode of "SmackDown Live" by defeating AJ Styles.
List of WWE Champions
The WWE Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in WWE, currently on the SmackDown brand. It is the first world title established in WWE, having been introduced in 1963 as the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) World Heavyweight Championship. The promotion was renamed World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1979 and ended its affiliation with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in 1983, with the title also renamed to reflect the changes. In 2001, it was unified with the World Championship (formerly the WCW World Heavyweight Championship) following the WWF's buyout of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and became the Undisputed WWF Championship. In 2002, the WWF was renamed World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and split its roster into two brands, Raw and SmackDown. The title, now renamed WWE Championship, was then designated to the SmackDown brand while WWE established an alternate world title known as the World Heavyweight Championship for the Raw brand. A third alternate world title, the ECW World Heavyweight Championship, was reactivated for the ECW brand in 2006. It was vacated and decommissioned when the ECW brand disbanded in 2010.