WWE News: Brock Lesnar has overtaken Kevin Owens as the longest reigning WWE Universal Champion

What's the story?

On the 8th October, Kevin Owens saw his record as the longest reigning WWE Universal Championship broken by someone who has only wrestled three times on pay-per-view since winning the belt around six months ago. That's right folks, Brock Lesnar is the new longest reigning RAW champion.

In case you didn't know...

Kevin Owens became the second person ever to hold the WWE Universal title after Finn Balor was forced to vacate the title a day after winning it due to injury. Owens won the title in a fatal-4-way elimination match besting Big Cass, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins.

Owens went on to feud with Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, as well as becoming 'best friends' with Chris Jericho during his title run, eventually dropping the title to Goldberg at Fastlane. This ended Owens' run at 188 days.

Goldberg didn't have the title long as Lesnar claimed the belt at Wrestlemania 33 becoming the first person to pin the former champ clean. The rumours were that Lesnar would keep the belt until 'Mania 34 and then drop the belt to Roman Reigns and it seemed that in doing so Lesnar would surpass Owens' reign.

The heart of the matter

Three on screen title defences and five matches (in total) later and Lesnar has indeed overtaken Kevin Owens and claimed the longest reigning WWE Universal Champion record for himself.

It also looks like Lesnar is going to build on this championship reign significantly as there appear to be no signs of WWE changing their Wrestlemania 34 plans with the Reigns vs Lesnar main event still very much on the cards, in fact his next title defence

If Lesnar does hold the title belt until 'Mania as expected, his reign would extend to 374 days, which amounts to one year and six days.

What's next?

Currently it's uncertain when Brock Lesnar will appear again in the WWE, let alone when he will wrestle or even defend the WWE Universal Title, but after successful title defences against Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman it's hard to see anyone else other than Reigns taking the belt off of the beast incarnate, and it's even harder to see the WWE doing that match anywhere else other than WrestleMania.

Author's Take

I understand that Brock Lesnar is a marquee name, an attraction and a big draw but there's really no excuse to have someone as absent and part-time holding their main title and several pay-per-views taking place without the title being defended.

The effect it's had on Monday Night Raw has been obvious. Personally if I was Kevin Owens I'd be gutted that my record has been beaten in such a way.