Another WrestleMania main event win is in the books for Roman Reigns, and along with it comes the World Heavyweight Championship, as The Original Tribal Chief defeated CM Punk on Sunday, April 19, 2026 at WWE WrestleMania 42.
The following is a full breakdown of the lead-up to this moment, the result, and the potential next steps.
How We Got Here:
Roman Reigns and CM Punk actually had a match last year at WrestleMania 41, with Seth Rollins also between them. That Triple Threat was not for any championship, but it did main event WrestleMania Saturday, crossing that off Punk's bucket list. Rollins was able to get the win, so it was unclear who would come out on top when it comes to Reigns and Punk.
Punk, who defeated Reigns' cousin Jey Uso to win the vacated World Heavyweight Championship (relinquished by Rollins, funny enough) at Saturday Night's Main Event in November 2025, was the champion of choice for Reigns, who won the 2026 Royal Rumble match to earn a shot at whatever world title he preferred.
What resulted was several months of promos and brawls between the two as they spoke in-depth about how much they hated each other, what they resented about their opponent, and increased animosity over who is better.
Match Details:
After a fantastic back-and-forth match that saw both men exhaust each other and push one another to their limits, CM Punk simply ran out of gas a little quicker and fell to one of Roman's finishing spears.
Personal Reactions & What Happens Next?:
This is certainly a candidate for Match of the Year. Phenomenal main event. Both absolutely killed it.
As far as the title change is concerned, my fear with Reigns as champion is that he's going to disappear like he usually does ever since adopting the Brock Lesnar rule of thumb where you take lots of time off and WWE promotes every fourth television show as "Reigns RETURNS to Raw/SmackDown" for a promo to set up the bare minimum of a title defense once in a while. I don't want a championship to sit on ice until SummerSlam, where I imagine Bron Breakker will win the belt, as that was rumored to be WWE's plan for what would happen with WrestleMania this year. If it is true that the idea was for Rollins to face Reigns, who would win the title and lose it to Breakker, then Punk is just swapped in for the Rollins spot and the rest will play out. Hopefully, if that is the case, Reigns actually has a few interesting other feuds over the coming months and isn't just keeping the belt warm. Punk, in the meantime, should likely take a bit of time off to refresh his batteries and come back ready for a new feud.
Tell us what you think about this title change by leaving a comment below! Who do you think will be the next in line to challenge for the title, or possibly even win the belt next? Keep the discussion going!