Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: Who is the WWE Champion?
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.
The WWE Championship is a world heavyweight championship created and promoted by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE on the SmackDown brand. It is one of two world titles for WWE's main roster, alongside the WWE Universal Championship that was created for the Raw brand as a result of the 2016 WWE draft. The current champion is Daniel Bryan, who is in his fourth reign.
The women's division of professional wrestling has maintained a recognized world champion since 1937, when Mildred Burke won the original World Women's title. She then formed the World Women's Wrestling Association in the early 1950s and recognized herself as the first champion, although the championship would be vacated upon her retirement in 1956. The NWA however, ceased to acknowledge Burke as Women's World champion in 1954, and instead acknowledged June Byers as champion after a controversial finish to a high-profile match between Burke and Byers that year. Upon Byers' retirement in 1964, The Fabulous Moolah, who won a junior heavyweight version of the NWA World Women's Championship (the predecessor to the original WWE Women's Championship) in a tournament back in 1958, was recognized by most NWA promoters as champion by default.
WWE has four active women's championships: two for their main roster's brands, the WWE Raw Women's Championship and WWE SmackDown Women's Championship, and two for their developmental brands, the NXT Women's Championship and the NXT UK Women's Championship. The Fabulous Moolah is recognized as WWE's first Women's Champion, with her reign beginning in 1956. In 2002, WWE began what was called the WWE brand extension, where wrestlers and championships became exclusive to one of WWE's brands. At first, the Women's Championship could be defended on any brand, but later that year, it became exclusive to the Raw brand. In 2008, WWE created the WWE Divas Championship as a counterpart title for the SmackDown brand. The two titles were eventually unified in September 2010. The Women's Championship was then retired in favor of keeping the Divas Championship, which became briefly known as the Unified WWE Divas Championship. The brand extension ended in 2011. In April 2016 at WrestleMania 32, the Divas Championship was retired and subsequently replaced with a new WWE Women's Championship, which has a separate title history from the original. WWE then reintroduced the brand extension in July 2016 and the Women's Championship (now Raw Women's Championship) became exclusive to Raw. In August 2016, SmackDown created the SmackDown Women's Championship as a counterpart title. On WWE's developmental brand NXT, women compete for the NXT Women's Championship, which was established in 2013 and later NXT UK franchise, which created its counterpart, the NXT UK Women's Championship, in 2018.
After CM Punk won the WWE Championship by defeating John Cena at WWE Money in the Bank and walked out of the company with the title, Vince McMahon set up a tournament to decide a new champion the following night on Raw. A week later in the final, Rey Mysterio defeated The Miz in the opening match of the broadcast to become WWE Champion. However, he would lose the title to Cena later that night, who would win the title for a WWE record ninth time. CM Punk then returned to the WWE with the title he won, meaning that for the first time in WWE history, two men had a claim to the title. The issue was settled at SummerSlam where Punk won a controversial rematch with Cena to become Undisputed Champion though he would lose the title to Raw Money In The Bank winner Alberto Del Rio seconds later.
The creation of the championship was announced on June 6, 2008, by then SmackDown General Manager Vickie Guerrero as a counterpart to the Raw brand's WWE Women's Championship. The inaugural champion was Michelle McCool, who defeated Natalya on July 20, 2008, at The Great American Bash. On April 13, 2009, the title was moved from SmackDown to Raw as a result of then Divas Champion Maryse being drafted to Raw in the 2009 WWE draft. On September 19, 2010, at the Night of Champions pay-per-view event, Michelle McCool (defending the Women's Championship on behalf of tag team partner and official champion, Layla) defeated Divas Champion Melina, retiring the Women's Championship and unifying it with the Divas Championship.
Immediately following Summerslam 2011, the brand extension officially ended, meaning that both the WWE Champion and the World Heavyweight Champion could appear on both "Raw" and "SmackDown". In November 2013, then World Heavyweight Champion John Cena made a challenge to then WWE Champion Randy Orton to determine an undisputed world champion; the match would take place at the pay-per-view the following month. Randy Orton defeated John Cena in a TLC match and unified the titles. Subsequently, the World Heavyweight Championship was retired and the WWE Championship was renamed the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and retained its lineage. Like the WWE Undisputed Championship, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship was represented by the belts of its two predecessors until a singular belt design was commissioned in August 2014. In June 2016, the championship was reverted to being called the WWE Championship before WWE reintroduced the brand extension the following month. The WWE Champion was drafted to SmackDown and it was renamed the WWE World Championship though reverted to WWE Championship in December 2016. In response, Raw created their own world championship, the WWE Universal Championship. With this, WWE no longer has an undisputed world champion as there are two world championships in the promotion again.
Secondary titles in WWE include the WWE Intercontinental Championship for Raw and the WWE United States Championship for SmackDown. The Intercontinental Championship is held by Bobby Lashley, who is in his first reign. He won the title by defeating previous champion Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins in a triple threat match on the January 14 episode of Raw. The United States Championship is held by R-Truth, who is in his second reign. He won the title by defeating Shinsuke Nakamura on the January 29 episode of SmackDown Live.
WWE Clash of Champions was a professional wrestling event produced annually by WWE, a Connecticut–based professional wrestling promotion, and broadcast live and available only through pay-per-view (PPV) and the WWE Network. The event was established in 2016 for Raw brand, replacing WWE Night of Champions in the late September slot of WWE's pay-per-view calendar. However, the 2017 edition of the event was held on the December slot, and became a SmackDown-branded event. In 2018, it was announced that Clash of Champions would be a dual branded event, but it was later canceled; the December PPV slot Clash of Champions intended to fill was replaced with .
The WWE Cruiserweight Championship was a professional wrestling championship in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and was originally a World Championship Wrestling (WCW) title. It was challenged by cruiserweights at a maximum weight of 225lbs. During the WWE brand extension, it was the only title to be exclusive to the SmackDown! brand during its entire tenure. There were a total of 40 recognized champions who had a combined 79 official reigns. This is a chronological list of wrestlers that held the original WWE Cruiserweight Championship, listed by ring name, with the longest reign being 385 days by Gregory Helms, and the most reigns by Rey Mysterio with 8.
The main event was the "Champion of Champions" match, between WWE's three top champions. The three champions in the match were WWE Champion John Cena, World Heavyweight Champion King Booker, and ECW World Champion The Big Show. The fans could vote for who would defend their championship in this match. Booker won the match by pinning Cena following interference from Kevin Federline. The predominant match on the card was D-Generation X (Triple H and Shawn Michaels) versus Rated-RKO (Edge and Randy Orton). Rated-RKO won the match after Orton pinned Triple H following an RKO onto a steel chair. The featured matches on the undercard were Jeff Hardy versus Carlito for the WWE Intercontinental Championship and Lita versus Mickie James in a Diva Lumberjack match for the WWE Women's Championship.
The 2005 draft was held on the June 6 episode of Raw. The first draft lottery pick was then WWE Champion John Cena, thus moving the WWE Championship to Raw and having two titles on the brand. Eventually, then World Heavyweight Champion Batista was deafted to SmackDown as the last draft pick, leaving only the WWE Championship on Raw. On the 2008 draft lottery, CM Punk got drafted to Raw and then won the World Heavyweight Championship from Edge, who was a SmackDown wrestler. Triple H, who was the WWE Champion at the time, got drafted to SmackDown while Kane, who was the then ECW Champion, got drafted to Raw. After the draft lottery in 2009, the WWE Championship was brought back to Raw when Triple H was drafted from SmackDown while the World Heavyweight Championship was brought back to SmackDown when Edge defeated John Cena to win the title at Backlash.
Following the end of the first brand extension in August 2011, both the WWE Champion and World Heavyweight Champion could appear on both Raw and SmackDown. In November 2013, the night after Survivor Series, then-World Heavyweight Champion John Cena made a challenge to then-WWE Champion Randy Orton to determine an undisputed WWE world champion. Orton defeated Cena in a TLC match at the TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs pay-per-view on December 15, 2013, to unify the titles. Subsequently, the unified championship was renamed WWE World Heavyweight Championship and retained the lineage of the WWE Championship; the World Heavyweight Championship was retired.[23] Orton and subsequent champions held both championship belts until a single championship belt was given to then-champion Brock Lesnar in 2014.[24]
Prior to signing with WWE in 2009, Ewen was a powerlifter and became USA Powerlifting champion. In WWE, he is a one-time Intercontinental Champion, two-time Raw Tag Team Champion, a three-time SmackDown Tag Team Champion, and a one-time NXT Champion (while in WWE's developmental system, NXT). As a part of The New Day, he holds the record for the longest tag team championship reign in WWE history.
In 2000, Perez began training to be a professional wrestler at Jesse Hernandez's School of Hard Knocks, and made her debut in 2002. In late 2002, Perez auditioned for WWE's reality show "Tough Enough III", but was eliminated in first round, and was inspired by Al Snow to continue pursuing her wrestling career. In March 2004, Perez signed a contract with WWE, and was assigned to OVW, WWE's developmental territory, where she began managing Johnny Nitro and Joey Mercury, dubbed MNM, to three reigns as WWE Tag Team Champions, as well as Nitro to two reigns as WWE Intercontinental Champion. Perez is a three-time WWE Women's Champion, and a two-time WWE Divas Champion. After winning her second WWE Divas Championship, Perez became the first woman in WWE history to become a multiple-time champion with both the Women's and Divas titles. Famed for her flexibility, utilized during her entrance and in her in-ring maneuvers, Perez was called "one of the best wrestlers in the world" by Bret Hart, and cited by WWE as having "perhaps the most impressive arsenal of offensive maneuvers in WWE history."
After the 2016 brand extension where the championship became exclusive to SmackDown, the similarly designed WWE Universal Championship was introduced for the Raw brand.[50] The WWE World Heavyweight Championship was briefly renamed WWE Championship;[51] the digitized belt in the pre-match graphic read "WWE Champion" below the WWE logo.[52] It was then renamed WWE World Championship in July 2016[53] and the pre-match graphic was updated to read "WWE World Champion".[54] In December 2016, the title was again reverted to WWE Championship;[55] the pre-match graphic no longer includes the title's name.[56] The physical belt, however, retains "World Heavyweight Champion" below the logo.
In WWE storyline, the concept for the Money in the Bank match was introduced in March 2005 by Chris Jericho. Jericho then pitched the idea to Raw general manager Eric Bischoff, who liked it and promptly began to book the match for WrestleMania 21. Edge won the inaugural match and held the contract until New Year's Revolution in January 2006. There, he cashed in his Money in the Bank contract against WWE Champion John Cena, who had just successfully defended the title in an Elimination Chamber match. Edge defeated Cena to become WWE Champion and quickly establishing the precedent of "cashing in" on a vulnerable champion.
After signing with WWE in 2010, Lopez was sent to its developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) where he was renamed Seth Rollins and became the inaugural FCW Grand Slam Champion. After WWE rebranded FCW into NXT, he became the inaugural NXT Champion. Alongside fellow wrestlers Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns, he debuted on WWE's main roster at the 2012 Survivor Series as part of a faction called The Shield. He won his first main roster championship while with the group, the WWE Tag Team Championship with Reigns. Following the team's first breakup in June 2014, Rollins went on to become a two-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion, two-time Intercontinental Champion, a one-time United States Champion, a four-time WWE/Raw Tag Team Champion (with Reigns, Ambrose, and Jason Jordan), the 2014 Money in the Bank winner, the 2015 Superstar of the Year and the 2019 Men's Royal Rumble winner. Upon capturing his first WWE Championship (then known as the WWE World Heavyweight Championship), he became the first wrestler of Armenian descent to hold the title and after winning his first Intercontinental Championship, he became the 29th Triple Crown Champion and the 18th Grand Slam Champion. On January 27th, 2019, Seth Rollins became the first WWE superstar to win the Royal Rumble from the number 10 spot. 
The WWE Women's Championship Tournament was a tournament to crown a new WWE Women's Champion after champion Trish Stratus retired from her wrestling career. The first round started on September 25, 2006 and ended at Cyber Sunday when Lita, who Stratus defeated in her retirement match, defeated Mickie James.
WWE Night of Champions was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event and WWE Network event produced by professional wrestling promotion WWE. The took place on June 24, 2007 and was a crossover with Vengeance. In 2008, Vengeance was dropped in favor of Night of Champions and it took over the June pay-per-view event slot. Night of Champions moved to July in 2009 and to September in 2010. In 2016, Night of Champions was replaced on the PPV schedule by Clash of Champions. Though the concept of Clash of Champions is similar, it is not a direct continuation of Night of Champions.
The WWE Divas Championship was a women's professional wrestling championship in WWE. The championship was created by WWE in 2008, and was introduced as part of the WWE brand extension via a storyline by then SmackDown General Manager Vickie Guerrero as an alternative to Raw's WWE Women's Championship. Michelle McCool became the inaugural champion on July 20, 2008, when she defeated Natalya at The Great American Bash. After then-WWE Divas Champion Maryse was drafted to Raw as part of the 2009 WWE draft, she took the title with her. McCool won a match against Melina to unify the WWE Divas and Women's titles at the Night of Champions pay-per-view on September 19, 2010, creating the Unified WWE Divas Championship; it eventually dropped the "Unified" moniker.
The WWE Raw Women's Championship is held by Ronda Rousey, who is in her first reign. She defeated Alexa Bliss on August 19, 2018, at SummerSlam. The WWE SmackDown Women's Championship is held by Asuka, who is in her first reign. She won the title by defeating previous champion Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair in a Triple Threat Tables, Ladders and Chairs match at TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs.
When WWE Champion Randy Orton defeated World Heavyweight Champion John Cena at the pay-per-view event on December 15, 2013, the World Heavyweight Championship was unified with the WWE Championship, resulting in the retiring of the former and the renaming of the latter to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. On June 27, 2016, the name was shortened back to the WWE Championship before assuming the WWE World Championship name on July 26, when the brand extension returned. It became designated to the SmackDown brand and WWE again established an alternate world title known as the WWE Universal Championship for the Raw brand. In December 2016, WWE again shortened the title's name back to WWE Championship.
The show featured five professional wrestling matches, a wedding ceremony and appearances from past WWE performers. The wedding between AJ Lee and Daniel Bryan ended with AJ leaving Bryan after being announced as the new General Manager of Raw by WWE chairman Vince McMahon. The Miz defeated Christian to become the WWE Intercontinental Champion. In the main event, John Cena won by disqualification in a WWE Championship match against defending champion CM Punk, who proceeded to turn heel (villainous) by attacking The Rock.
As recognized by the WWE, the inaugural champion was The Fabulous Moolah, who won the title on September 18, 1956, which at that time was the NWA World Women's Championship (which still exists today). While she was still champion, it became the WWF Women's Championship in 1984. In May 2002, after the WWF was renamed to WWE, the championship became the WWE Women's Championship. At the start of the brand extension that began in March 2002, the Women's Championship was defended on any brand until it became exclusive to Raw in September that year. It was the only women's championship in the WWE until SmackDown created the WWE Divas Championship as a counterpart title in July 2008. The titles switched brands in April 2009. On September 19, 2010, at Night of Champions, the Women's Championship was unified with the WWE Divas Championship, retiring the Women's Championship.
Following the end of the first brand extension in 2011, both the World Heavyweight Champion and WWE Champion could appear on both "Raw" and "SmackDown". In 2013, the night after Survivor Series, then-World Heavyweight Champion John Cena made a challenge to then-WWE Champion Randy Orton to determine an undisputed WWE world champion. Randy Orton defeated John Cena in a TLC match at the pay-per-view on December 15, 2013, to unify the titles. Subsequently, the WWE Championship was renamed WWE World Heavyweight Championship. The unified championship retained the lineage of the WWE Championship, and the World Heavyweight Championship was retired. With his victory over John Cena, Randy Orton became the final World Heavyweight Champion. Like with the Undisputed Championship, the Big Gold Belt was used in tandem with the WWE Championship belt to represent the WWE World Heavyweight Championship until a single belt was presented to then champion Brock Lesnar in August 2014. 