John Cena Can’t Beat Ric Flair In World Title Wins Says WWE Hall Of Famer
A World Title win for John Cena would break a tie with Ric Flair, but one WWE Hall of Famer is against it.
John Cena won his first WWE Championship at WrestleMania 21 in 2005 when he beat JBL. Over the next 12 years, Cena won 16 World Titles, which is broken down as WWE Championship 13 times and the World Heavyweight Title three times. Cena’s final WWE Title reign lasted just 14 days in 2017.
The recognized number of World Title wins in Ric Flair’s illustrious career is 16. There are some historians and even Flair himself that say the number is actually closer to 21, but the 16 number is what WWE has used for decades when talking about Flair, so that’s what most people go with.
Ric Flair has gone on record to say that he would support John Cena breaking their World Title tie record and Flair would be there to shake his hand as well.
The World Title story is likely going to be a big deal heading into 2025 since John Cena has made it clear that he will retire by the end of that year. There will likely be WWE storylines about whether or not Cena can win the WWE Title (or World Title) one more time to set the record as the most decorated champion in WWE history.
John Cena Shouldn’t Break Tie WIth Ric Flair According To Bully Ray
Bully Ray, who returned to WWE television as Bubba Ray Dudley on NXT this week in a losing effort with Trick Williams, talked about the World Title subject on the Busted Open Radio show where Ray is a co-host. In his opinion, Cena shouldn’t get that elusive 17th World Title win.
“To me, John Cena is a WWE Champion, full stop, that’s it. You can’t beat Ric Flair’s record. Ric Flair was a WWF Champion, he was an NWA Champion, a WCW Champion.
Ric Flair has held different championships around the world which to me, holds more water than John Cena’s only WWE Championships.
To me, John Cena is already the most decorated World Heavyweight Champion in WWE history, and John Cena has the record within the WWE. I don’t look at it that way, Flair is in a spot all his own.”
As he continued to make his point, Ray mentioned his own Dudley Boyz tag team in comparison to WWE’s The New Day.
“You can say The New Day are the most decorated tag team in the history of the WWE, but The New Day can’t even be mentioned in the same breath as The Dudleys, because The Dudleys did it all over the planet.”
It’s worth pointing out that Ric Flair’s final two WCW World Title reigns lasted seven days and the other one was less than 24 hours after he won it when Kevin Nash gave it to him. Flair then went on to lose it to Jeff Jarrett.
Both of those reigns happened in 2000, which was WCW’s final full year and a year that featured 19 title changes while the likes of David Arquette and Vince Russo held the title in that year. The year 2000 in WCW was pure chaos. Thankfully for Ric Flair, he had many other title reigns that were memorable.