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.
WrestleMania 34
At the Royal Rumble, SmackDown's Shinsuke Nakamura won the men's Royal Rumble match, earning a world championship match of his choosing at WrestleMania. Nakamura chose WWE Champion AJ Styles. At Fastlane, Styles retained the WWE Championship in a six-pack challenge, confirming the Styles-Nakamura match at WrestleMania. On the post-Fastlane episode of SmackDown, Styles and Nakamura expressed respect for each other, but Nakamura promised to deliver a Kinshasa to Styles at WrestleMania and become WWE Champion, and teased a Kinshasa on Styles after saving him from an attack the following week. Styles warned Nakamura to not take him lightly and mentioned their previous encounter in New Japan. Styles then teased a Phenomenal Forearm on Nakamura after the two had won a tag team match on the April 3 episode.