title holder
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary EnglishRelated topics: Sport, Lawtitle holderˈtitle ˌholder noun [countable] 1 DSthe person or team that is the winner of an important sports competition2 SCLsomeone who owns a title deedExamples from the Corpustitle holder• Initially Karpov was to suffer from the stigma of achieving world championship status without combat against the title holder.