WWE Championship Runs

[rpsulli85]

I was looking up facts and statistics for another thread when I remembered something: John Cena is a World Champion for the 10th time. He has been champion for a total of 1,084 days. Bruno Sammartino was a 2 time champion with a total reign time of 4,040 days. That is almost 4 times as long for those who are mathematically challenged. So my proposal is simple, and I am guessing that I am not the first to propose this: instead of counting the number of title reigns that a wrestler has, we should instead count the length of time that they held the title to provide a more accurate picture of how good of a champion they were. I have provided a list of the top 20 champions, dating from the NWA Title, WCW/WWE World Heavyweight Title, WWE Championship and TNA/Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship. Any thoughts to improve this list are more than welcome.

These lengths are accurate as of June 2, 2011

1. Bruno Sammartino - 4,040 days
2. Lou Thesz - 3,749 days
3. Ric Flair - 3,720 days
4. Hulk Hogan - 3,362 days
5. Bob Backlund - 2,138 days
6. Harley Race - 1,862 days
7. Dan Severn - 1,559 days
8. Dory Funk, Jr. - 1,502 days
9. Triple H - 1,155 days
10. Gene Kiniski - 1,131 days
11. John Cena - 1,084 days
12. Jeff Jerrett - 1,064 days
13. Pedro Morales - 1,027 days
14. Pat O'Connor - 903 days
15. Jack Brisco - 866 days
16. Kurt Angle - 776 days
17. Sting - 755 days
18. Adam Pierce - 728 days
19. Bret Hart - 710 days
20. Orville Brown - 692 days

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I love that Adam "Scrap Iron" Pierce is ahead of Bret Hart on this list! That shows just how far the NWA World Title has fallen since its glory days, when a nobody like Pierce is ahead of one of the all time greats in the Hitman, and on the same list as wrestling's greatest champions!

I think both the length of the reign, and the number of reigns have to be take into consideration, as well as the quality of opponents, matches and the stature of the company at the time.

For example, Pierce has held the NWA title for a long time and could have put on excellent matches, but he is the main guy in a group of indie promotions with little or no crediblity. For someone like John Cena, or Bruno Sammartino, they are the top guys in the biggest promotion on the planet. In the WWE, with all its millions of fans, they are/were THE MAN.

To be good enough to be given the world title in WWE and being trusted with leading the promotion as its number 1 guy in far more prestigious than holding the NWA for a year now. All factors have to be taken into consideration when looking at the greatest champions of all time, but certainly the number of title reigns a wrestler has is becoming less important as the belts are passed around far too much these days.

One question...I have just noticed Dan "The Beast" Severn is in at 7th place, with over 4 YEARS of title reigns....I had no idea he had a 4 year= NWA title reign before coming to the WWE

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

I don't feel that the length of title reigns is a really good way of determining if one champion is better than the other. Let us take the example that the OP has given us, that of Cena and Sammaritino.

During Sammaritino's days there were no TV shows and wrestlers moved from territory to territory to defend their titles. In this way wrestlers could remin fresh for a long, long time before the crowd started clamoring for a new champion. Only the audience that was in the arena of a state would be watching them perform. In those days, it could be so that a wrestler has been champion for over 1000 days and there still might be some territories who would have never seen that wrestler perform.

John Cena wrestles in an era which in which you have to be on TV every week and you have to have one or perhaps even two or three title matches in a month with the whole world watching every move of yours. With so much wrestling on TV these days, it is easier for a wrestler to lose popularity these days as compared to the days of the territory era. The wrestling audience is seeing a wrestler on screen every week, sometimes even twice or thrice a week. It won't be long before he starts asking for a change. So isn't John Cena's reign actually more noteworthy than that of Bruno Sammaritino because despite there being many disadvantages Cena has entertained the fans enough to actually warrant the title for over 1000 days?

Actually there is no foolproof system of determining as to who is a better champion than whom. A lot of things come into play like the prestige of the title at different times, the amount of TV time and the exposure of a company, the popularity of the wrestling business as a whole during the time wrestler A performed and the same during the time wrestler B performed, the amount a wrestler drew achieved as champion and many more such criterias. You have to take everything into account to design a foolproof system and that is difficult.

Just by taking one glance at your rankings I can pick out a flaw. Adam Pearce, an indy nobody whom a majority of people on the forum have even not heard about is on that list but Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, two household names, are not. How do you justify that

 

[JJohns]

You really can't look at total title reigns and combined length of reign and say that's how you come up with the greatest champion of all time. For example, Bruno only defended his title against WWWF Approved opposition in WWWF ran arenas. Sure, he had matches against many top names, but there were others that he never faced.

Then you get Lou Thesz, who, as NWA's World Champion around the same time, was defending from territory to territory, usually facing that territory's best. And when it was good for business, he would lose the title only to get it back. I hate to say it, but two wrestlers in the top five should not be there. Backlund did not wrestle as much premier talent, and many of Hogan's last reigns were plagued with politicking and many times, proved bad for business.

Then you get the ludicrous, like Dan Severn being ranked higher than Jack Brisco, Orville Brown and many great names that don't make the list because during their time, it was harder to hold a belt like George Hackenschmidt and Frank Gotch.

When it comes to great champions, the age old adage reigns true, it's about quality, not quantity.

 

[JJohns]

I love that Adam "Scrap Iron" Pierce is ahead of Bret Hart on this list! That shows just how far the NWA World Title has fallen since its glory days, when a nobody like Pierce is ahead of one of the all time greats in the Hitman, and on the same list as wrestling's greatest champions!

I think both the length of the reign, and the number of reigns have to be take into consideration, as well as the quality of opponents, matches and the stature of the company at the time.

For example, Pierce has held the NWA title for a long time and could have put on excellent matches, but he is the main guy in a group of indie promotions with little or no crediblity. For someone like John Cena, or Bruno Sammartino, they are the top guys in the biggest promotion on the planet. In the WWE, with all its millions of fans, they are/were THE MAN.

To be good enough to be given the world title in WWE and being trusted with leading the promotion as its number 1 guy in far more prestigious than holding the NWA for a year now. All factors have to be taken into consideration when looking at the greatest champions of all time, but certainly the number of title reigns a wrestler has is becoming less important as the belts are passed around far too much these days.

One question...I have just noticed Dan "The Beast" Severn is in at 7th place, with over 4 YEARS of title reigns....I had no idea he had a 4 year= NWA title reign before coming to the WWE

Actually, he had two reigns. One before he entered WWF (which he held the belt for a short time while there) and he was the final champion before the establishment of NWA: TNA (he was stripped of the title due to a contractual obligation for a MMA event).

 

[rpsulli85]

Just by taking one glance at your rankings I can pick out a flaw. Adam Pearce, an indy nobody whom a majority of people on the forum have even not heard about is on that list but Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, two household names, are not. How do you justify that

Keep in mind one simple fact about SCSA and The Rock: They didn't need the titles to get people to pay attention to them. These 2 were able to draw a crowd whether they were wrestling for the WWF Title or if they were just going at each other. The other thing to keep in mind is that there was only 1 major title at the time that they were in their prime. Finally, from the time that Austin won the title for the first time to when his last match in WWE was, the total time span was 1997-2003, both being at WrestleMania. That is a span of only 6 years. The Rock was similar with his first title run being November of '98 and he stopped wrestling full time in 2003. That doesn't leave a lot of time for either or them to accrue to long duration with the titles. Also keep in mind that during those time frames, Austin was gone almost a year with a neck injury and the Rock was gone off and on for almost 3 years because of his movie career. So yes, they were both great Superstars for the company, but neither of them really ever needed the belt to get to where they were/are.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

Just by taking one glance at your rankings I can pick out a flaw. Adam Pearce, an indy nobody whom a majority of people on the forum have even not heard about is on that list but Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, two household names, are not. How do you justify that

The Rock and Austin were in their prime during the Attitude Era, where titles changed hands every couple of months. For example, between the start of 1998 and the start of 2000, there were 17 different title reigns, with the longest being Stone Cold with 2 reigns at 90 and 91 days.

Other than Austin, The Rock had a 2 reign title reign, and 2 others at 40 and 41 days. Kane held the belt for 1 day, Vince McMahon for 6, Big Show for 50, Undertaker for 36, Triple H with 22 and 49 days and Mankind had 3 reigns of 26, 20 and 1 day.

The era of Stone Cold is when wrestling was at its most over-the-top, where shocks and big surprises were needed every week to outdo WCW in the Monday Night Wars. Year long title reigns would not have worked in that time, as the fans wanted action NOW, and would not have had the patience for that. It was all about "what is going to happen next? who is going to swerve etc." The whole Attitude Era was not suited to long-term champions, so that is why Rock and Austin did not have the belt for any long period of time.

 

[rpsulli85]

I am not sure if that last comment was directed at me, but my point was more that SCSA and The Rock didn't need to have the belt to be main eventers. HBK was another of that breed who got over without the main strap. Other stars, like Triple H and Big Show, needed it to gain credibility.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

Keep in mind one simple fact about SCSA and The Rock: They didn't need the titles to get people to pay attention to them. These 2 were able to draw a crowd whether they were wrestling for the WWF Title or if they were just going at each other. The other thing to keep in mind is that there was only 1 major title at the time that they were in their prime. Finally, from the time that Austin won the title for the first time to when his last match in WWE was, the total time span was 1997-2003, both being at WrestleMania. That is a span of only 6 years. The Rock was similar with his first title run being November of '98 and he stopped wrestling full time in 2003. That doesn't leave a lot of time for either or them to accrue to long duration with the titles. Also keep in mind that during those time frames, Austin was gone almost a year with a neck injury and the Rock was gone off and on for almost 3 years because of his movie career. So yes, they were both great Superstars for the company, but neither of them really ever needed the belt to get to where they were/are.

The bold part of your statekment is a joke. Just because they were popular superstars even without holding the belt means that you should not give them the belt especially when there is no comparable draw around? No dude the fact is that they were given the belts and each guy had decent title reigns but they have not made it to your list because they had very short careers as compared to some of the other superstars on that list. If you calculate, you will find that from WrestleMania 14 to Summerslam 2002 which is basically the time during which both Rock and Austin were active main event level wrestlers the two together held the title for a combined duration of just over two years in a period spanning roughly 3 and a half years.

But you are missing the point I am trying to make. Rock and Austin are unarguably two of the greatest champions of all time and deserve to be at the top of any top 20 list. But your list based on the criteria of longest reigning champions being the best excludes them while at the same time includes some very undeserving talent. That is why I am saying that a top 20 champions of all time list cannot just be made on the criteria of number of title reigns or belts held for X days and so on. There are many guys who have held titles for long durations of time in their company because of the non availability of talented wrestlers but their quality of work is nowhere close to that of Rock or Austin.

The Rock and Austin were in their prime during the Attitude Era, where titles changed hands every couple of months. For example, between the start of 1998 and the start of 2000, there were 17 different title reigns, with the longest being Stone Cold with 2 reigns at 90 and 91 days.

Other than Austin, The Rock had a 2 reign title reign, and 2 others at 40 and 41 days. Kane held the belt for 1 day, Vince McMahon for 6, Big Show for 50, Undertaker for 36, Triple H with 22 and 49 days and Mankind had 3 reigns of 26, 20 and 1 day.

The era of Stone Cold is when wrestling was at its most over-the-top, where shocks and big surprises were needed every week to outdo WCW in the Monday Night Wars. Year long title reigns would not have worked in that time, as the fans wanted action NOW, and would not have had the patience for that. It was all about "what is going to happen next? who is going to swerve etc." The whole Attitude Era was not suited to long-term champions, so that is why Rock and Austin did not have the belt for any long period of time.

Dude, I grew up in the Attitude Era and I know these facts quite well. However what I am trying to say is that the length of title reigns or number of titles won should not be a criteria for deciding a list of top 20 champions of all time. There are many more factors that come into play.

 

[rpsulli85]

I wasn't suggesting that this was a top 20 list of greatest champions. The only way to ever judge that is opinion. All that I was suggesting is that given the way that a belt is passed around like a hot potato today, it would be more accurate to take a look at duration of time that a performer held a major title as opposed to the total number of times that a wrestler has won the title. And I will give you that there are some people on that list who shouldn't be, such as Adam Pierce and Jeff Jerrett, but the fact remains that they held the title for long stretches of time. This is part of the damage that was caused by the over-commercialization of wrestling and the war between WWF and WCW where quantity was more important than quality when it came to champions.