What if Braun Strowman beats Roman Reigns for the Universal title at Hell in a Cell?

#3 First first-time world champion in over a year

Braun Strowman could become the first first-time world champion in WWE since Jinder Mahal

2017 and 2018 have been marked by long world title reigns. This two year period has seen only nine different men hold world championships, and it turns out that number is deceptively high, because if we narrow the lens to only the last seventeen, rather than twenty four months, there have only been five different champs.

Early 2017 saw a flurry of activity that saw first-time champ Kevin Owens drop the Universal Championship, while the WWE Championship moved around between AJ Styles, John Cena, Bray Wyatt, Randy Orton, and Jinder Mahal. It’s noteworthy that, since Owens, Wyatt, and Mahal, we haven’t seen a first-time world champion crowned in WWE, which is a rarity since title changes became more frequent in the 1990s.

There’s little question WWE has groomed Braun Strowman to be a champion, but he’d actually be the first guy to win his first world title in WWE over a year.