8 WWE Records Broken This Year

#5 Longest reigning World Champion of the modern era

Brock Lesnar held on to the Universal Championship for over 500 days.

After CM Punk defeated Alberto Del Rio for the WWE title at Survivor Series 2011, he went on to become the longest reigning World Champion of the modern era. CM Punk opened and closed 2012 as the WWE Champion. CM Punk's Championship reign lasted 434 days. During his reign, Punk feuded with Superstars of the past and present like Chris Jericho, The Rock, John Cena, Daniel Bryan etc. After The Rock dethroned CM Punk, it looked like Punk's record wouldn't be broken for a long time.

That wasn't the case, however, as just 5 years later, in 2018, Lesnar broke CM Punk's record. Brock Lesnar won the Universal title at Wrestlemania 33 (2017) and his Championship reign managed to cross the 500-day mark in August 2018. Lesnar reigned as The Universal Champion for 504 days before dropping the Title to Roman Reigns at Summerslam 2018. However, Lesnar's record-breaking reign has been met with mostly negative reactions as Lesnar is a part-timer and didn't have to defend the title as frequently as Punk had to.