Insight Into Why WWE Has So Many Long Title Reigns
There are some really long title reigns in WWE right now with some new insight into why that is.
With Roman Reigns closing in on 1000 days as the WWE Universal Title and The Usos recently having the longest Tag Team Title reign in WWE history, The Bloodline is all about making history.
At WrestleMania 39, Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn beat The Usos to become Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions (Raw & Smackdown titles) meaning they put an end to The Usos record-breaking reign as Smackdown Tag Team Champions that ended at 622 days.
As for Reigns, he is still several years from breaking all-time title reign records, but he will hit 999 days on May 27th at WWE Night of Champions, which is his likely next title defense. After that, Reigns will pass 1000 days as the Universal Champion (he’s the WWE Champion too).
In addition to The Bloodline guys, Bianca Belair has been WWE Raw Women’s Champion for over 380 days as she targets passing Becky Lynch’s record 389-day reign with that title. There’s also Charlotte Flair with 14 reigns as a Women’s Champion on WWE’s main roster, which will lead a pursuit of more than 16 reigns to pass her father Ric Flair and John Cena.
There’s also GUNTHER with the Intercontinental Title. His current 300+ day reign as champion is the longest of any IC Champion this century and it’s not inconceivable to think that GUNTHER will pass Honky Tonk Man’s 454-day record as the IC Champion.
With that in mind, Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men Podcast spoke about why there are so many long title reigns in WWE these days.
“Over the last couple of years, it probably started with the Universal Title, WWE realized that when you look at the history books the greatest champions, like the measurement of like ‘this guy held the title for this many days,’ ‘Honky Tonk Man had the title for this long…’ The modern era does not have any of those records. Titles change, plans change, injuries are different, they work harder.”
“So, they made a point a couple of years ago to start changing this and modernizing it. One example was with manipulating the history books was when Bill Goldberg won that title. The Universal Title. There’s a reason why Brock Lesnar had it and Bill Goldberg had it. They wanted to add the older prestige to this new title. So you’re creating a legacy.”
“Same as why Chris Jericho had the AEW Title. Was it that Chris Jericho is the biggest draw in the company? Yeah he was one of them. But I don’t think that it would have really made a difference if Kenny [Omega] held the title from the go. You gotta bump the stats. So having Chris Jericho as your first champion, or having a Bill Goldberg as your champion matters.”
As he continued, Zarian made the point that WWE was looking to modernize some of these records to make the current stars stand out more.
“Now, on the other side we’re seeing that Charlotte [Flair] is going to be a record holder. Bianca [Belair] has held that title for a while. Roman is coming up to 1000. There was a new record for the Tag Titles. Gunther is breaking a record for the Intercontinental Title. This is a way to modernize the history books so you’re no longer looking at names — and I’m not knocking this — you’re not looking at Pedro Morales every time you look at that list.”
“You’re going to see somebody else, because the reality is that Bruno Sammartino is Bruno, and Hulk Hogan is Hulk Hogan, and that’s fine, and there’s nothing you could do to erase that.”
“But, when you’re looking at the history books, these kids are not gonna know who Bruno is, and who Pedro is, and Buddy Rodgers. This doesn’t matter to them, they want to see names that they recognize.”
GUNTHER will put that Intercontinental Title on the line one more time on tonight’s April 21st edition of Smackdown when he faces Xavier Woods.