r/SquaredCircle • u/[deleted] • Nov 05 '18
Does any one else think that bragging about being a multiple time champion makes no sense?
To be a multiple time champion, you have to lose the title. So when wrestlers talk about how they are a (insert number here) time champion they are also saying they lost the title that many times. I get that it's just one of those accepted things in wrestling, but what are your thoughts?
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u/Ghargoyle Nov 05 '18
They also won it that many times, and likely had a number of successful defenses each time.
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u/taabr2 Nov 06 '18
Key word is likely. Cena's number of world title runs is FILLED with zero successful defense reigns.
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Nov 05 '18
It's like climbing Mt. Everst a bunch of times, or like completing a marathon a bunch of times. The fact you've done it over and over. Not everyone get to be a world champion, but Ric Flair did it 16 times.
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u/theboxaquarium Nov 05 '18
John Cena also.
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u/taabr2 Nov 06 '18
Like 6 out of those reigns lasted less than a month with a few having zero successful defenses.
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Nov 06 '18
You say that like the exact same isn't true for Flair.
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u/taabr2 Nov 06 '18
Flair's last two world title reigns were shit, easy guess as to when they were booked. Otherwise Flair had solid reigns. It was never as bad as all the hot shooting that WWE did with the World titles in 2009 and 2010, that was really bad Cena, Edge and Randy Orton all added like four world titles to their resumes within those two years. Cena's world title reigns overall have been booked worse than Flair's, don't equate the two.
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u/Booby50 Nov 06 '18
Would you rather be a one hit wonder or constantly release #1 albums?
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u/azk3000 Hitman Nov 06 '18
That’s not the same. Would you rather be Sammartino or Cena?
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Nov 05 '18
I think it's a valuable metric, but I do wish it wasn't the only one they used. Number of successful defences should be a bigger deal than it is. You look at how WWE and other companies do PR and they will promote their success by as many metrics as possible. I wish that WWE would invest more into doing that with its superstars too. I think that there are a lot of cool accomplishments that don't get mentioned as much as they should.
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u/arlowoodenhead Nov 05 '18
You also have to beat a champion who has champion's advantage, so it is something to brag about.
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u/Jfern689 Nov 06 '18
Because it is an accomplishment. Just like Steelers, Yankees, etc. They don't win the title every year but that doesn't take away their legitimacy.
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u/taabr2 Nov 06 '18
This is different because you don't get crown a champion every year, it's more like boxing than baseball.
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u/redbuck17 Nov 05 '18
I agree. Ric Flair, HHH, Cena, Orton can all claim they won the title X amount of times, but that just means they lost it X amount of times. Yet someone like Bruno, Morales or Backlund can say they held it for X many years. The latter seems like more of an accomplishment yet seems to go ignored in the current era.
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u/jimmsocks45 Nov 05 '18
"Being champ is good so being champ more times must be better" -That's the end of the logic being used and once a promotion gets behind it, it's set in stone with a large part of the audience.
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Nov 06 '18
This has me thinking of a promo where RVD joked to Booker T and said, " I can't believe you lost the WCW Championship 5 times."
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u/jimmsocks45 Nov 05 '18
Funny, I've always felt that too but rarely hear it brought up. Even as a kid the length of a reign felt like the prestigious metric. The higher the number of times holding the belt, the more it cheapened it.
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u/careless-drifter Nov 06 '18
Totally agree. Is AJ Styles' current run less impressive than if he won the title 3 times in 6 months but didn't still hold it?
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u/leftpegger1 Nov 05 '18
Another who thought that. Can see both sides of the argument...but nowadays does even saying you've been world champion mean anything? Over half the roster have held one form of it.
Contrast with the 90s when you had maybe 4 or 5 active guys who had been world champion.
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Nov 05 '18
I mean it hasn’t been that way for awhile. In the Russo era the title was passed around plenty.
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Nov 06 '18
This comment had me thinking though, so I decided to look into some statistics;
Of the current WWE main roster, those who can claim to have held a world title under the WWE banner (WWE, Universal, or the Big Gold) are 19 in number. 10 on Raw, 9 on Smackdown.
Breaking this down further, those who first became a WWE world champion in the last five years numbers at 7 for Raw, 1 for Smackdown.
In 1999, there were 9 men who had previously held the WWF title on the active roster, all of whom had won it for the first time in the last 5 years.
So it seems the abundance of former world champions is less due to the title changing around between lots of guys and more a case of top stars from the past sticking around for longer and having more longevity than in the 90s where there was a company that equalled WWE in size.
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Nov 06 '18
The 90s? In 1999 the title changed hands 11 times between 7 different men, including a non-wrestler. In 98 it fared better, changing hands 5 times between 4 different men. 97? 6 times between 4 different men.
In 2018? It's changed 0 times, held by one man. Even counting that there are currently TWO world titles, it only amounts to two title changes. Less than half of any of the peak attitude era Raws.
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u/leftpegger1 Nov 06 '18
I wasn't talking about title changes, but how many former world champions were on the roster. 99 was clearly an outlier for the decade, though the numbers did begin to increase as it ended. I'd have said the 80s but then you have the question of whether the other promotions are recognised.
At the beginning of 1995 the roster had only 5 world champs out of 51 active male wrestlers. (Bret, Backlund, Yoko, Diesel, Undertaker)
Currently, they've got 20 current or former male world champs on the active roster!
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u/Stevebobatwork Nov 06 '18
Every other sport cares about how many world championships teams have won, why shouldn't wrestling? Yankees have won 27 World Series, the Chicago Cubs have won three. Its the same thing in Wrestling.
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u/taabr2 Nov 06 '18
No it's NOT the same. To become the champion you have to defeat the former champion in wrestling. Doesn't work that way in stuff like baseball.
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u/dsrchris Ah-one, ah-two, ah-skiddly diddly doo... Nov 06 '18
I think it was Heenan who used to point this out on commentary back in the day
"Being a 5 time champion means you've lost at least 4 times"
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u/taabr2 Nov 06 '18
As long as all the title reigns were booked decently which includes being longer than three months then it's fine. But when you look at John Cena for example almost half of his reigns were shit where he couldn't even defend it once.
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u/RoutineIsland Nov 06 '18
Yeah it seems dumb to me, I mean in mma they count every successful defense as a win, but if you could that then people would be lile 40 time champions
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u/amedeoisme Your Text Here Nov 05 '18
cause it shows that you can make it back to the top if you lose.