Credit: WWE.com
In a year where WWE championships changed hands more times than Inspector Gadget, The New Day reigned throughout 2016 as a dominant unit, turning away all comers. Championships are supposed to be a rite of passage, and while WWE seemed restless with many of its booking decisions regarding its champions in several divisions, The New Day was the one constant.
Monday night on Raw, The New Day defeated four teams in two different matches to retain the Raw Tag Team Championships. At 477 days, The New Day will tie Demolition's record of longest-reigning WWE tag team champions on Tuesday at midnight. The next-longest reigning champion in WWE is Kevin Owens, who has held the Universal Championship for a mere 105 days.
For all the talk of the Raw women's division making history, both Charlotte and Sasha Banks have struggled to hold on to the Raw Women's Championship for more than a month.
By regularly defending the Tag Team Championships as their big day approached, The New Day made the Tag Team Championships the unheralded star of Raw in an otherwise thin division. WWE magnificently built this run to a fever pitch with a main event Triple Threat match, against Shield 1.5 (Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns) and JeriKO, filled with believable nearfalls. In the end, history was wearing neon blue and pink.
En route to becoming the longest-reigning tag team champions in WWE history, Big E, Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston have teased a potential heel turn down the stretch. This is something WWE seems to be getting cold feet about, but a wrinkle that should be exploited as the popular stable continues to evolve.
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| Championship | Champion(s) | Days Held | Brand |
| WWE Raw Tag Team Championship | The New Day | 477 Days | Raw |
| WWE Universal Championship | Kevin Owens | 105 Days | Raw |
| WWE World Championship | AJ Styles | 92 Days | SmackDown |
| WWE United States Championship | Roman Reigns | 78 Days | Raw |
| WWE Intercontinental Championship | The Miz | 27 Days | SmackDown |
| WWE Raw Women's Championship | Sasha Banks | 14 Days | Raw |
| WWE Cruiserweight Championship | Rich Swann | 13 Days | Raw |
| WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship | The Wyatt Family | 8 Days | SmackDown |
| WWE SmackDown Women's Championship | Alexa Bliss | 8 Days | SmackDown |
It's no secret that wrestling fans are a fickle bunch. The ongoing success and overexposure of The New Day will only make it easier to despise them. By cheating to win in recent weeks, The New Day seems to be ahead of the curve as an inevitable feud with Enzo and Cass lies on the horizon. But in 2016, a year where the brand split brought about four additional championships (for a total of nine), The New Day felt like the only actual champions in a diluted pool of belts.
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