Do you think Punk's record of 434 days will be broken?

[Terry Gyimah]

Honestly since there are 2 titles now again because of this brand split the WWE Universal Championship (RAW) and the WWE World Championship (Smackdown Live) do you think CM Punk's 434 day title reign will ever be broken in this modern era? I mean Punk was Champion from Survivor Series 2011 to Royal Rumble 2013 a damn long time to stay champion so do you see any superstar on either roster from RAW or Smackdown Live bring able to break Punk's record?

 

[Naniwa91]

Yes, but not for a very long time.

What they had with that title reign was pure brilliance. What's more, CM Punk had a certain energy to him--a mystique if you will. That is something that is not easy to find, let alone replicate.

It is a very different WWE in 2016 than it was in 2011-12, and while there may be wrestlers capable of a lengthy title run, I feel there aren't any writers capable of keeping the fans interest for quite that long. Maybe for 280-340 days but not 434. As for the record itself, it went into history the moment the belts were unified to begin with... from my vantage point at least.

 

[kadroan]

Honestly since there are 2 titles now again because of this brand split the WWE Universal Championship (RAW) and the WWE World Championship (Smackdown Live) do you think CM Punk's 434 day title reign will ever be broken in this modern era? I mean Punk was Champion from Survivor Series 2011 to Royal Rumble 2013 a damn long time to stay champion so do you see any superstar on either roster from RAW or Smackdown Live bring able to break Punk's record?

I think Reigns will break it. WWE seems to not have given up on him being "the chosen one", what he's going through now, I'm not sure make fans believe he "earned" his inevitable push vs. putting him back in the main event picture after his suspension.

I think once he loses his US title, probably some point during the summer. I can see him possibly winning the MITB Briefcase for RAW.

I think now WWE once he's through with this feud with Owens, probably will be out of the title picture for a while then once he gets back in it he's going to hold the title for a while.

 

[sikkbones]

If they were going to let anyone beak cm punks modern era run it would have been lesnar, who should have held the belt that long, and only shown up on ppv.

They did have heyman to handle the TV part of things, and honestly I think they need to go back to the hoganesq days where the champion being on TV was Important instead of being roman reigns all the time.

Had they protected reigns by limiting him on tv after he won the title, he might have been better received .

 

[Navi]

I really hope not. We saw what happened during Nikki Bella's title reign and currently with New Day. The ending's to all their matches is pretty much known before the match is even announced. Sorry but I like a surprise every now and again. Now saying a title should be passed around like a hot potato, but I certainly don't want to see anyone going into every PPV knowing that the match results in advance, like we are seeing now with New Day.

Wrestling has changed from the days when you could hold the title for a long time and make it seem believable. The roster is too big for an almost 2 year reign with any belt. I know records are meant to be broken, but this one should stay as is.

 

[The Yes Guy]

You see, Punk was a very uniquely gifted guy who constantly re-invented himself throughout his title run. The face run, then the heel turn, then aligning himself with Heyman.. It never felt stagnant.

I don't really see a well rounded guy today who could do this.

Seth Rollins is a lousy face. Reigns isn't remotely capable. Ambrose, AJ don't really need the title. Cena won't have a lengthy run anymore. Orton is out of the title picture.

That leaves me with two people.

1. Kevin Owens. He's got the support. He's a natural heel but could work as a face. Could carry the title for for multiple feuds with a variety of people.

2. Wyatt could do it. Great mic skills, can work with a variety of people. Has the Family to interfere and cheat his way to a lengthy run.

 

[johnbragg]

If they were going to let anyone beak cm punks modern era run it would have been lesnar, who should have held the belt that long, and only shown up on ppv.

They did have heyman to handle the TV part of things, and honestly I think they need to go back to the hoganesq days where the champion being on TV was Important instead of being roman reigns all the time.

Had they protected reigns by limiting him on tv after he won the title, he might have been better received .

Don't know about Lesnar holding the belt for over a year, but this brings up a favorite sidetrack of mine about the brand extensions. I thought it was a mistake 10+ years ago to make the World title brand-exclusive. Instead of creating a second world title, elevate the IC title as the top title on RAW, and create a Smackdown counterpart--probably the US title, using the NWA/WCW lineage, or just a plain old blue-black-and-silver "Smackdown Championship." Raw and SmackDown alternate choosing No. 1 contenders, once in a while the IC or SD/US champ pulls an Ultimate Warrior and demands his shot at the top prize.

That would have also worked very well with part-time Lesnar as champ, and the IC champ on Smackdown and the Monday Night RAW champion (not a fan of the "Universal" title) campaigning for a shot at the top prize. Extend the 30-day rule to 90 days and make a big deal of it.

 

[roipdh123]

Honestly there is only one man I can see holding the title that long now and it's AJ Styles in his current reign.

I think AJ should lose the title at Wrestle Mania 34 to Shinsuke Nakamura.

And this is how it will be booked:
-Feud with Ambrose ends in December.
-Feud with Taker at RR
-Heading into Mania a feud with Orton and Wyatt
-After Mania he feuds with Miz until MITB.
-After MITB he feuds with the winner of the Orton\Wyatt feud until Summer Slam.
-Feuds with Samoa Joe all the way to Survivor Series\TLC 2017.
-Feuds with a winner of a breakthrough battle royal heading into the Royal Rumble of 2018 (Apollo Crews maybe or a drafted Raw superstar?).
-Finally feuding with Shinsuke Nakamura until Wrestle Mania 34.

** Regining the title will be an easy task for him, but with such a long run, he needs to take a break from it until WrestleMania 35 at least. **

That will give us a title reign of 574 Days (I caculated it as if WM 34 will be on April 8th 2018, but you can see he clearly beats Punk's record).


Two notes:
1. AJ will turn slowly into a babyface in the timeframe between WrestleMania 33 - Summer Slam 2017.
2. It can be anyone who beats him for the title, me personally would love it to be Nak. But the only thing that must happen is that this will be a person AJ haven't feud in his title run before hand.

 

[Boubou79]

I'm pretty sure Vince would only let Cena beat that record...

My personnal opinion, to have a long run like that your character needs to make a turn (face/heel) somewhere along the way or else it becomes boring and redundant. Even more now because with the brand extension you have less contenders on every show. I can see AJ Styles pulling this off or maybe Reigns if they finally decide that he can be THE bad guy.

 

[Deoxyribonucleic A.C.I.D.]

Let's not forget something, Punk just happened to be the #1 heel at the time at the right moment. It's clear, as stated by him, that they wanted The Rock to face a heel for the belt upon his return. The deal was, either Punk turns, or Bryan beats Punk. And Punk turnt.

But I loved his reign. It wasn't boring. It was exciting. He was exciting. Do we have someone like that on our TV screens at the moment? Nope.

Maybe if Finn Balor steps up his mic skills by 60-70%, he'll be the one to break it. Same goes for Rollins. Reigns would be a cool heel champ.
But I hope it's a face. I miss long runs by babyfaces.

 

[stingray11214]

At the present state of the titles? Nobody. Why? Answer: You currently have two World straps in play here. Who would get the credit? The Brand Extension has created what the WWE needed right now: Everybody being involved in SOMETHING. Little thought, then, of what a World strap reign record- breaking run would do. So, I doubt if anyone is going to make a run similar to Punk's.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

That 's true, after all Punk was carrying the entire company with that title run... not just a brand. Anyone matching his reign now would inherently be lesser than his...as they're only carrying one belt/brand.

By the time they could position someone to truly match it, it would legit be easier to get Punk back... we're talking a year of building someone (assuming it's not a second+ reign for someone), six months for them to chase/win the title/get to a logical win point and THEN 14 or so months to beat his reign... Balor had a shot at it, but injury scuppered it in minutes and that's the other factor. So that is 2/12 or 3 years... by then WWE and Punk WILL be doing business... so you may as well bring Punk back then and have him try to beat his own streak/unify both belts... THAT would sell and provided he could stay healthy could help re-invigorate the business.

The only way now to guarantee such a reign is either to have meaningless squashes ala Goldberg or have the champ appear so cowardly that the belt gets devalued... Wyatt could be the exception, but even then it would mean keeping Orton in the Family to make that work for so long that he would be devalued... If Orton is on the outs or not renewing, fair enough but I don't think WWE are going to burn him on being Wyatt's lackey, even though it is a logical role for him for the next year or so...

The only outside bet...and it really IS leftfield is if they could get Connor McGregor on a 2 or 3 year deal... Him I could see doing it, taking both belts and perhaps still fighting UFC... but then you have the belts basically "out of play" for the day to day as with Brock, which would also defeat the object of the Brand extension.

 

[Xpyred013]

At the present state of the titles? Nobody. Why? Answer: You currently have two World straps in play here. Who would get the credit? The Brand Extension has created what the WWE needed right now: Everybody being involved in SOMETHING. Little thought, then, of what a World strap reign record- breaking run would do. So, I doubt if anyone is going to make a run similar to Punk's.

WWE didn't need a split brand to achieve any of this. Remember when in late 1997 all the way through to around early 2004 when story lines involved everyone on the roster and everyone was busy and there was only one of each title? What happened? Oh yeah stephanie took over as lead writer and everything went to shit.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I genuinely thought that Rollins was going to break Punk's record before he got injured last year. Too late for that to happen now. Honestly, with the right booking I could see either Styles or Owens doing it. They are at 75 and 88 days respectively so far. They would need to keep whoever it is going until he runs out of face challengers and then he would need to turn face. At that time he can begin going through heel challengers. By the one year mark he might need to turn heel again, giving face challengers another shot, and it buys more time. If they do this with Owens then a lengthy Jericho feud would be a must. Owens is the better option of the two as it would be good for the Universal Championship to get a strong lengthy reign in. The major downside to using Owens to break the record is that there are a couple of major obstacles in the way such as Goldberg's return (I really don't want a part-time champion AGAIN) and the dreaded thought of another forced Reigns push. Styles has better odds of breaking the record of Punk than Owens does, given the rosters and the creative teams of the two brands. It could still happen. Although, if you want to get technical, the record in terms of length already did get broken by The New Day. If we're talking strictly World Champions then I'd predict Styles at this point.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

I really hope not. That title reign got really, really boring coming on the end, well....the whole second half of it really. C.M Punk seemed to not give a shit anymore and nothing coming from creative was refreshing anything with his reign. To try and take the stink off the reign they called The Rock in to take the belt away. Every time I go back and happen to catch a C.M Punk match I'm surprised at how - botchy- he was in his last two years in the company. His GTS looked like shit and didn't even looked like it came close to connecting and by the end, his leaving was a blessing. Overrated.

 

[JoeMallard]

I really hope not. That title reign got really, really boring coming on the end, well....the whole second half of it really. C.M Punk seemed to not give a shit anymore and nothing coming from creative was refreshing anything with his reign. To try and take the stink off the reign they called The Rock in to take the belt away. Every time I go back and happen to catch a C.M Punk match I'm surprised at how - botchy- he was in his last two years in the company. His GTS looked like shit and didn't even looked like it came close to connecting and by the end, his leaving was a blessing. Overrated.

Ha, Punk carried Rock's ass to the best match of his return.

 

[ShinChan]

I don't think that it could be broken. Plus, I hope that it isn't broken.

As much as I am a fan of CM Punk, the end was overdue for his reign. After that, we have witnessed Nikki becoming the longest reigning Divas Champion which fortunately isn't even an active title now. Niw, I am sure that we are going to witness New Day become the longest reigning tag champs.

The credibility of title challengers is affected badly since the champions are always the favorite to win just for a worthless record.

 

[FromGlasgow]

Not so impressive when you consider he may have been world champion but how often did the guy headline or become the face of the company, He doesn't even come close to the longest ever title reign, Theres been longer reigns in the past from guys like Bruno Sammartino, Bob Backlund and Hulk Hogan etc.
If the question was will Punks particular modern reign be beaten then yes I expect it will maybe not in the near future but eventually someone will come along and beat it,
Different story for someone like Sammartino's reign I would be very surprised if his reigns ever came close to being surpassed.
I previously never thought anyone would ever beat Ric Flair's 16 official world titles record but Cena's getting close so who knows.

 

[BaconBits]

Super long title reigns are super overrated. Especially when today's fans think the champ should be on TV every week. The ******ed thing is that those very same fans will complain the belt has no value. You cannot have it both ways.

Oh, and most of Punk's reign was pretty boring. Mostly because Punk is boring.

 

[Jdulemba1001]

Yeah, someone will eventually. But, I don't think anyone currently on the roster does it....records are made to be broken, put the summer of Punk set up a perfect storm and we don't see anything like that currently.

 

[Jericho91]

Do i think Punk's record will be broken ?

Yes, under the condition Punk sues WWE for whatever reason. That's Vince's way of punishing somebody lol.