Will Cena surpass Flairs 16 World Titles?

[Luten]

Ric Flairs 16 World Titles (despite some being questionable) are always referenced by WWE, almost like it’s the pinnacle achievement from their perspective.

So, it got me thinking, either this is Cena’s last run as Champ, or his 16th run will be, making him equal Flair in Title reigns.

I’m not on the Cena hate train (anymore, it’s a waste of time) but there are only two Cena title victories I have been happy with: his first one, and this one.

This time round it just felt right, call it a safe bet if you wish, but come on, that title needs building up again. Cena is your guy, even if it’s just a case of you tuning in to see who takes the title from him.

These days I’m happy that I’ve seen the entirety of his WWE career. I have a gut feeling it’ll start to wind down in the next five eyars, and when the dust is settled, I think a WWE without Cena will be a sad day. If only for the crowd response he generates.

So anyway, perhaps I’m wrong and he will surpass Flair in World title reigns.

My only question is do you think they would pull the trigger on this? I personally always thought Triple H would’ve been the guy to total Flair.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

I wouldn't have a problem with having Cena top Flair. First, I don't put too much stock into the number of title reigns. I look at their quality overall. For instance, Randy Orton is a 12 time World Title holder according to the WWE, and yet you'd be forgiven for thinking you blinked and missed a couple of those.

Flair's no different: I'm not sure which reigns the WWE counts in his 16 title reigns at this point, but some of those may've included when the WCW and NWA belts were separate titles (1993 roundabouts), or his vacating the title after a double pin with Ricky Steamboat and then rewinning it days later (counted as two separate reigns), or him trading the belt around with Randy Savage, Hollywood Hogan and DDP in the late 90s but only holding the belt about 30 to 40 days each time.

To me, the importance of number of title reigns dropped by the wayside back in the early to mid 90s when titles started getting split (WCW/NWA) and then truly irrelevant when the Monday Night Wars started up and title reigns could last a handful of days and the title could bounce around 6 or 7 times in a given year, if not more.

Let's just look at each guy on their merits and how many great matches they've given us over the years. I would say Cena would still have some catching up to do with Flair, but that's only because of Flair's longevity. Cena is no slouch in the classic match department.

 

[Mudlup50]

My guess is Cena will. I think WWE is building to it. And it wouldn't surprise me if they're building it up to a big PPV, WM, Survivor Series or Night Of Champions being as they need people to reup their WWE network.

But as Joey Joe Joe said, it really shouldn't matter the number of reigns. Thank you for not saying the length of reigns xD hate that argument with Cena...anyway Cena has another 10 years to have quality matches, how couldn't he win the title 2 more times in that time frame? Use him to get some new guys over after though.

 

[King Patrick Star]

I wouldn’t mind if Cena ended up with 17 World Championship Title reigns and I wouldn’t mind the WWE saying he has the most of all time. In my mind, Ric Flair is the 26 time World Champion...and 6 time Hall Of Famer WOOOO!!

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I think it's a pretty safe bet that John Cena will have at least 2 more runs as World Champion before his career is over. It's all but written in the stars at this point that Cena drops the title to Lesnar at SummerSlam only to regain it from Lesnar at Night of Champions because of how Brock Lesnar's deal with WWE is structured.

Even if Cena surpasses Flair's "official" record, which I think is very likely, I think most will still say that Flair's runs meant more due to a combination of nostalgia and wrestling companies playing hot potato with their World Championships for much of the past 20 years. At the same time, Flair's runs probably wouldn't seem as glamorous at the time if people had easy access to information the way we have now. For instance, Flair dropped the title on four different occasions to four different wrestlers that aren't officially recognized by the NWA: once to Jack Veneno in Santo Domingo in late August of 1982, once to Carlos Colon in Puerto Rico the first week of January 1983, once to Harley Race at a house show in New Zealand in late March 1984 and once to Tatsumi Fujinami during a joint WCW/New Japan show in late March 1991. While those title drops and lack of recognition by the NWA is all backstage politics, having that sort of knowledge then and growing up with it would still lend some degree of taint to the greatness of Flair's runs to some degree.

 

[Tyrant25]

The credibility of some of Flair's reigns aren't as good as you may think. Cena has won the belt many times and lost it many times, but I don't think we've ever seen a reign in which Cena won the title and lost it a month later. Cena deserves to surpass Flair, and I'm sure Flair would be more than willing to give his approval.

 

[capnwillie]

Short Answer: Yes.
Long Answer: Yes but Cena as a 16-time champ won't carry the same weight as Flair. Flair had some of the best competition of all time as a 16-time champion while much of Cena's time as champion has been during a low period for the industry. Championship wins over The Miz and guys like that really aren't as impressive as Flair vs. Rhodes, Steamboat, Hart and any of the hundreds of other hall of famers Flair beat for his. Cena getting into that particular club will be mostly a way of saying thanks for his loyalty and hard work. And yes, he deserves it. If you love him or hate him or just don't care, the guy has worked his ass off and you can't argue with that.

 

[chicagokmc]

Cena and most likely Orton will pass it. Orton is at 12 I believe and young enough to get to 16. No problem with either passing it. As others have already stated 15 isn't as a great a number as it sounds. Plus most of Flair's 15 were not in WWE. All of Cena's (and Orton too if he gets there) will be WWE and I think they want to have one of their own to have that distinction of most world title reigns.

 

[Creepy Old Man]

Face it people: when Cena retires he will be unequivocally hailed by WWE as the single greatest professional wrestler of all time. Not Shawn, not 'Taker, not Bret, not anybody but Cena.

 

[Brushfire]

Will he? Yes.
Should he? Probably not, but it doesn't bother me too much either way. Like JoeyJoeJoe said in his post, the quality of the reign matters far more to me than the number. I also prefer to live in the present as far as wrestling is concerned, here it's that I care more about who the current champion is rather than the past champions.

 

[Galvatron]

I think its pretty obvious at this point that Cena will pass it. The real questions are: When will he pass it? and How many more than 16 will he have? I wouldn't be surprised if he tied it by the end of this year and he will definitely have 17 by the end of 2015.

 

[Ziirox]

This is a no brainer. Yes.

Cena will probably be a 18-20 time champ before it's all said and done. Do I think John Cena is the great singles champion of all time though? No. That question is still largely open for debate. The number of reigns Cena will have will be an impressive number. However, his quality of those reigns is where he loses it. It's the same reason why I never saw Chris Jericho as a great World Champion. A majority of their reigns were under 6 months.

Besides Cena's first, second, third, and eleventh reigns, all of his title runs have been under 100 days. Those four reigns were fairly impressive for a modern champion. His third run alone lasted a total 380 days.

Let's break down all of Cena's runs here (all according to Wikipedia).

WWE Title
1: 280 days
2: 133 days
3: 380 days
4: 21 days
5: 49 days
6: Less than 1 day
7: 84 days
8: 77 days
9: 20 days
10: 14 days
11: 133 days
12 (current): 3 days

World Heavyweight Championship:

1: 84 days
2: 21 days
3: 49 days

In total, John Cena has held a World Championship belt for a total of (if I did may Math right) 1349 days. In John Cena's 12 year career, he has spent over 3.5+ years as a world champion alone. However, his average title reign is 89 days, which is slightly less than 3 months. The number of days he has been champion is fairly impressive, but the lackluster runs (in my eyes) diminish how much of a quality champion he is. I'm not saying John Cena isn't a great person or a champion, but he's not the best and not deserving of the title as the greatest world champion of all time simply based on the numbers.

 

[Trance Metaphor]

I honestly don't care how many times John Cena (or Ric Flair) has been World Champion. To me, the number of days that someone has been a Champion means nothing and really isn't all that impressive to me. It's all about how many successful title defences that a wrestler has had. Hell, I regard someone that has only been a Champion for two months with four successful title defences as a Champion of higher quality. With that being said, I'm pretty sure Cena will surpass Flair's 16 reigns. Look at the rate he is going right now. I like John Cena as WWE Champion when he defends it successfully multiple times. I don't like John Cena as WWE Champion when he plays hot potato with the title like he did with Edge. They need to stop cheapening some of his reigns just to reach the number of titles he's won at a quicker rate. It's underwhelming.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Cena will absolutely break Flair's 16 World Championships record. He only has 2 left at this point and unless he gets a serious injury, I see Cena having plenty of years left. He's got more than enough time to break that record and move on to set one of his own. It has been my prediction for a while that Cena will set a new record of 20 World Championships before all is said and done. The haters refuse to admit it, but he is a star and he does deserve the success he has had. He's one of the biggest names in pro wrestling history and no one has as much passion for what he does as Cena does. No one else deserves it more to break the record than John Cena. At one point I thought Triple H or even Edge might, but it didn't happen. There was a bit of uncertainty with both of them though, and with Cena there is none. It's all but guaranteed that he'll break it whether you want him to or not. I can't wait for when it happens!

 

[The Grizz]

It's not a matter of will he, it's a matter of when!

Cena has atleast three more title reigns in him to set him as far apart from Flair as possible.

Cena will be hailed as the greatest of all time, .....and I'm a Cena hater...

 

[Charismatic Enigma]

Of course he breaks it (probably within a year).

Here's the big difference…

More than the number of reigns, or the amount of days, the thing that separates Flair from Cena, and what in my opinion will always make Flair's reigns superior, is that he had the belt in multiple different companies, with multiple different bookers, over the course of decades.

Cena by comparison, has had all his reigns in one company, with one decision maker, in a much shorter period of time. He won over the WWE brass quickly, and has stayed on their good side, but Flair played the game, and won, with a lot of different bosses, and has proven staying power.

So if you're asking will Cena be "the man because he beat the man"? The answer is no. Unless we're still having this conversation a decade from now, and he's also managed to have a run in RoH, and TNA (which aren't anywhere near as big as being the top draw in WCW/WWF were back in Flair's day).

 

[ABMorales787]

Of course he breaks it (probably within a year).

Here's the big difference…

More than the number of reigns, or the amount of days, the thing that separates Flair from Cena, and what in my opinion will always make Flair's reigns superior, is that he had the belt in multiple different companies, with multiple different bookers, over the course of decades.

Cena by comparison, has had all his reigns in one company, with one decision maker, in a much shorter period of time. He won over the WWE brass quickly, and has stayed on their good side, but Flair played the game, and won, with a lot of different bosses, and has proven staying power.

So if you're asking will Cena be "the man because he beat the man"? The answer is no. Unless we're still having this conversation a decade from now, and he's also managed to have a run in RoH, and TNA (which aren't anywhere near as big as being the top draw in WCW/WWF were back in Flair's day).

So you're saying John Cena doesn't have staying power? The hell does it matter if he goes to other places or not? What matters is what you do wherever you are not where you go. John Cena didn't beat the man because he was the man. And still is for a long time to come. Much like Ric Flair, John Cena is a one of a kind talent that will never be seen again.

 

[NegativeFeedback]

The reason Ric Flair's world title wins are so impressive is not just because of the number, but because that total was amassed between the top 3 promotions in America. He became a 16-time world champion with WCW, NWA and WWF, a feat that has never been repeated.

There are tons of guys who have gotten close, but most of them just get them from one promotion.

Here's a list of all the people behind Flair:

1. Verne Gagne (16)- Verne is technically tied with Flair. He held the NWA's classic Omaha World title 5 times, he held the IWE's World title in Japan once, and held the AWA World title 10 times. Those are some pretty big numbers, but do they compare to Flair's WWF/WCW/NWA?? Not really. He booked himself to win all of those 10 AWA titles. His "16" comes with an asterisk. That's why we always hear about Flair's record and never talk about Gagne.

2. El Canek (15)- He held the UWA World title 15 times. He is the prime example of a guy who never branched out his success elsewhere.

3. John Cena (15)- He also didn't branch anywhere, obtaining all 15 titles in WWE. He's probably passing Flair soon, but like I said, his reigns just don't hold as much weight as Flair's.

4. Sting (15)- He's tied with Cena and Canek for 3rd place behind Flair and Verne. I don't think he's winning any title anytime soon, but his reigns are pretty impressive. He has 8 in WCW, 1 in NWA, 5 in TNA and 1 in WWA. That's a pretty good list, although he never worked in WWF so he'll always be missing that final accomplishment .

5. Dick the Bruiser (13)- He held NWA's Omaha World title once, Indianapolis' WHC 10 times, LA's WHC once, and the AWA title once. Those are some pretty impressive accolades for the pioneer era.

6. Jeff Jarrett (13)- Jeff has a pretty impressive list. 6 World titles in TNA, 4 in WCW, 1 in AAA and 2 in Australia's shortlived WWA. That's similar to Sting's totals which are 5 World titles in TNA, 8 in WCW, 1 in NWA and 1 in Australia's WWA. Both of them are pretty close to breaking Flair's reigns. I don't think they have many world titles in their futures, but Jeff could easily book himself to win 4 GFW titles and surpass Flair. But would it really count??

7. Triple H (13)- Just like Jeff, Triple H has the power to book himself into 4 world title reigns and call himself the record-holder. But I doubt this ever happens. Like Cena, he got them all in 1 company, so his collection will never compare to Flair's.

8. Hulk Hogan (12)- 6 WCW titles and 6 WWF titles. That's a pretty great list. He also had an unofficial NWA title reign that was reversed. Had he been more successful during his time in NWA, he would probably right at the top with Flair in the record-books.

9. Orville Brown (12)- 11 in MWA and 1 NWA. That's a pretty one-sided list as well, just like Gagne's and Canek's.

10. Randy Orton (12)- Just like Cena and Triple H, he made them all in WWE. It's very possible that he'll win 5 more titles, but if he does, it will feel like a cheap way of breaking Flair's record considering how useless most of his title reigns have been.

11. Edge (11)- Same for Orton above. All of them were in WWE. And Edge's especially were all very short.

12. Kurt Angle (11)- Angle likes to bill himself as like a 20-time champion or whatever, but I count 'em like I see 'em. 1 IWGP title, 4 TNA, and 6 in WWE. He's not close to beating Flair's record until he pulls a Cena and gets like 5 title reigns in one year.

13. Lou Thesz (11)- It's hard to calculate his reigns because so many of his world titles spun off other world titles. But I did my research and it looks like he won a title 11 times. 3 NWA World titles, 1. NWA Int. World title, 3 of the NBA's NWA, 1 with the Pacific Northwest's WHC, 1 UWA, 1 WWA, and 1 AWA (Boston version). And that's not counting all the other titles he spun off. I consider him a solid #2 in terms of resumé right behind Ric Flair. That awesome collection of titles is just too hard to ignore.

Behind Lou, you'll have guys like Stan Hansen, Jumbo Tsuruta and Big Van Vader who also had a bunch of titles from different companies. Too bad these guys didn't get a little bit more title wins, because I would have loved to see them next to Flair at the top of the record books instead of Cena, Orton and Triple H who's giant totals come from making it once in 1 company, unlike all these other guys who made it in various top venues.

 

[A11oftheLights]

Has anyone considered the possibility that he respects flair too much to pass 16? This is the same reason i believe Triple H never passed 16. Dont get me wrong i wouldnt be suprised if he passed it. The other observation I have on the scenario is Brock's meant to win at Summerslam, Reigns is mean to beat him at WM31 (How we get there is anyones guess thanks to brocks contract) But then after 31 you have to hope Reigns goes on a lengthy run, then there is Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, Daniel Bryan, Cesaro, Randy Orton and anyone else that breaks out (Sami Zayn? Adrian Neville?) that could keep him out of the picture if Cena wants.

However I agree cena will go for 20, even though i think he should just go one massive one at 17.

 

[kadroan]

Yes, records are made to be broken.

It would be one of the few things left that Cena hasn't done.

Maybe he could beat Stone Cold's RR win record. That would be an amazing feat itself.

Stone Cold won 3, Cena won twice.

 

[Flair is Overrated]

It doesn't matter, because they are fake titles. They are props. I think Kevin Nash called out Flair for claiming he was a badass for being a 16 time world champion when it's a fake title and offering to fight Flair in a shoot. And he had a point, because Nash (and many, many other wrestlers) would destroy Flair (and Hulk Hogan for that matter) in shoot fights. If it's not a legitimate competition, title reigns don't mean anything. Guys like Dibiase, Piper, and Jake Roberts were far greater than most "world champions" despite never winning the belt.

 

[Mudlup50]

So you're saying John Cena doesn't have staying power? The hell does it matter if he goes to other places or not? What matters is what you do wherever you are not where you go. John Cena didn't beat the man because he was the man. And still is for a long time to come. Much like Ric Flair, John Cena is a one of a kind talent that will never be seen again.

No I think what he means is that professional wrestling is scripted...so being over in one company doesn't mean as much as being over when you're in multiple companies

 

[berlinbrawler]

Around 10 years ago, when John Cena was still relatively new as the top guy he had one tag team match with Hulk Hogan. Afterwards Hogan said in an interview that he saw in Cena potential to be the next guy to have a 20 year run on top. Back then I was thinking: "Oh hell no. The horror! Thank God the Hulkster is talking out of his ass anyway."

Fast forward to right now and it's clear that for once Hogan knew exactly what he was talking about. Right now Cena's count is at 15. While his injuries keep piling up and it's clear that no one can keep this kind of lifestyle up forever, I would say Cena still has a lot of gas left in the tank. Before Cena rides into the sunset he'll probably be a 20-time champion. Oh well. While I still don't like him, if nothing else I respect the hell out of him. I can't imagine anyone who doesn't.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

Yes he will, and I have no problem with him doing it.

There is no way that WWE will not give Cena another couple of title reigns after this one, he isn't retiring any time soon and is still the biggest full-time star on their roster.

While it's true Cena hasn't had multi-year title reigns like some of the stars of the past (Hogan, Sammartino etc) he has had several pretty long reigns as champion, so I don't think people can complain about Cena having "short reigns"- even Flair had several very short reigns as WCW champion which has boosted up his level of title reigns, and guys like Edge have huge numbers of title reigns while none were very long at all.

John Cena is Mr WWE, Vince loves him and he makes the company alot of money. He is the cash cow, the top dog and will be until he can't do it any more. I fully expect Cena to win his 17th title at a WrestleMania in a couple of years.

 

[Reflection]

Cena will definitely surpass Flair's record. Not just because he still is a maineventer and has many years left in the tank, but also because the WWE probably doesn't want a drunkard with no control to have that pinnacle record, like they gave Ambrose that reign because they didn't want a TNA employee to have the longest reign record. Not just Cena, I think even Orton will cross Flair.