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.
WWE Championship
The WWE Championship was the first world championship introduced into the promotion in 1963. The inaugural champion was Buddy Rogers, and there have been 50 different official champions overall and 11 vacancies. The longest reigning champion is Bruno Sammartino, who held the title from May 17, 1963 to January 18, 1971, for a total of 2,803 days (7 years, 8 months, and 1 day); Sammartino also holds the record for longest combined reign at 4,040 days. André the Giant is the shortest reigning champion, officially holding the title for 1 minute, 48 seconds. The youngest champion is Brock Lesnar, who won the title at the age of 25, while the oldest champion is Vince McMahon, who won it at the age of 54. John Cena holds the record for most reigns with 13.