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Serious question I'm not meaning to be a dick by asking this, why does that matter to you as a fan? Cena was absolutely unbearable during the vast majority of his run on top, he was corny, overexposed, and never had anything as good as the peak of the bloodline story last year going for him, but that's besides the point, I'll admit Roman should show up a little more, and he should have dropped the belt at WrestleMania 39, but no world champion should ever be on TV as much as we've been accustomed to seeing them over the past 30 years. It just leads to guys getting stale very quickly. Showing up means nothing when you're showing up to do filler, which is what most champions who show up every week do.
>Cena was absolutely unbearable during the vast majority of his run on top, he was corny, overexposed, and never had anything as good as the peak of the bloodline story last year going for him
Plenty of Cena revisionism the past 4 years which lead me to believe that the kids who Cena was marketed to in his prime are now the "smart fans" on these messageboards.
I did genuinely enjoy a fair amount of Cena's run - and by all accounts he's a standup guy who went above and beyond with his work with Make A Wish - but some of the things people look back on with rose tinted glasses nowadays are the same reasons he was resented back in the day.
That’s just the nature of internet wrestling fans. I’m old enough to remember internet fans hating Rock and Stone Cold, wanting the likes of Jericho and He Who Must Not Be Named to be promoted to the top of the card.
Cena had two real periods of bad time at the top - the initial push in 2006-07 where he wasn't accepted by the fans and they tied themselves in knots trying to get him over
In retrospect it was probably the right call to push through and establish him as a top face because they'd didnt have replacements on hand for a long term run at that
The second bad period was 2010-11 where the company was in a real rut and they got cold feet about pulling the trigger on the Nexus because I guess they figured if they diminish Cena, it could have been devastating and they didn't trust others to pick up the slack. But it was a bad call.
His 2007 feud against HBK and his 2011 feud against Punk both pulled the company upwards a bit and ended the span of a bad time at the top. Besides that, I think his career was mostly solid at the top - the Rock feuds arguably kept the company from total collapse pre-Network, and from 2014 onwards, he has been putting people over while retaining solid mic ability and credibility. His initial stuff with JBL was good, and the Rumble Return in 2008 was well done. His Brock feuds were always entertaining.
He got over as a midcard act, and his initial title push was accepted. What wasn't was the attempt to make him the new Stone Cold type hegemonic babyface especially with a character change fans didn't ask for. Yes, the rapping had an expiration date, but the Marine Cena thing, that just didn't make sense and the fan demos weren't into it.
Ironically that act might have worked a few yrs later when WWE went PG, but they pushed Cena even further into being the Fruity Pebbles Childhood Hero character
I am one of those people. I started watching at ten years old in the Summer of 2007, right around the time when Cena was at his zenith as a top guy. Even as a ten year old, I thought he was so lame compared to guys like Edge, Jeff Hardy, and Randy Orton. Edge in particular was my dude back then.
Cena redeemed himself quite a bit with his US Title run forward, where he became a lot more mortal, helping to put over newer talent (he made KO look like a million bucks on his RAW debut for instance) and I think that's also helped bring people a bit more around to Cena not just being all bad.
In essence, once Cena stopped being the face of the WWE, people started to appreciate him for what he was, but I think there was a concerted effort on Cena's part to do that.
It’s literally nostalgia and i’m genuinely surprised Cena gets so much love when he hasn’t changed his character at all aside from just losing all the time now.
The problem wasn’t really with Cena (outside of the cringey PG promos from 2009-10), it was that he was shoved down our throats and every other wrestler on the show (outside of established legends who predated him) was made to look inferior to him.
Now that he’s not shoved down our throats, and other wrestlers aren’t constantly being portrayed as not being on his level, there’s less reason to dislike him.
I think /u/Mud-Bray was just stating it as a fact, and not saying it was either intrinsically good or bad. My personal take on it is this:
1.) Roman had five televised title defenses last year. Why should I believe a title is prestigious if it’s rarely defended? Surviving five title defenses in one year isn’t impressive to me. The champion should be more present.
2.) The biggest problem with Roman’s reign isn’t the (in)frequency in which he appears, it’s that everyone has clocked since Clash at the Castle ‘22 that he’s not losing the title at any event besides WM. That’s made all his non-Mania title defenses seem like foregone conclusions.
I actually disagree that he should have lost at WM 39, by the way. Considering how big this WM is shaping up to be—and how invested people are in Cody’s story (and how hot he’s gotten after last year’s loss)—I think WWE has retroactively been proven right, so long as they actually pull the trigger this year.
People like different things but for me I can't stand not having the world champion on TV every week. I'm not asking for a match every week and actually think less matches are better but for me the world champion should be on television week in week out driving the main event story forward.
The problem I have with Roman is that when he takes weeks or months off his cousins and Heyman fill the gaps in the story which leads to the product being inferior. I don't care what message Heyman is delivering from Roman on the phone to his opponent or watching Solo Sikoa wrestle on behalf of Roman because he doesn't care to show up because it all feels pointless unless the champion is on screen.
Because now the reign isn’t as entertaining anymore and is only being extended to chase 3rd place at kayfabe record list, all to the detriment of anyone trying to reach main event status. Sure Cena had his lows but at least they’d take the title off of him and solidify other main eventers. He’d actually have back and forth feuds. Everyone just looks like a bitch if they lose to Roman back to back.
I think it’s because a lot of Gen Z fans weren’t around during the Super Cena run. For me, personally, I began watching the WWE in 2014, and not long after I saw Cena get destroyed by Brock Lesnar. So I never had any frame of, “Booo Cena is booked too strong,” because from the time I began watching, he’d begun putting over talent and putting on great matches. So that’s the Cena I know, and I totally understand he sucked during the Nexus run and during a lot of his time as the top star, but I never saw that run of his. For me, though, I did see Super Roman and I hated that. But at least Cena could cut a promo.
Ah, fuck. If Triple H realises this, we'll see Cody lose, just so Roman can boast about it and they can tout it as a legendary run that is longer then Cena's.
Idk why everyone keeps acting like surpassing Hogan is such a big accomplishment. He’s only third place. It’s not a record. Is there really that big of a difference between third and fourth place to justify extending the reign beyond its natural conclusion?
Honestly, the only people who will give a shit are older fans who actually remember Hulkamania. And even many of us still won't care. It's a big part of WWE & wrestling history, but it's also the distant past.
It isn't even the right title that is breaking the record. The long record is on the Universal Title, which is effectively retired at this point, unless they want to lose the lineage of the WWE Championship, which obviously they won't
Anything you can make a spectacle of is worth making a spectacle of. Sure, fourth and third aren't far apart, but people know the name Hulk Hogan still. They know he was a big time wrestler back in the day, and they probably don't know shit else about him. If Roman can surpass the old great, that's pretty sick, or at least that's the thought process. I'm sick as a dog of title reigns taking god damn forever, let alone 3+ years.
To some degree I get it, but I also feel like it’s a slippery slope. First it was “he has to retain because he’s so close to 1000 days” then it became “he has to retain because he’s close to Hogan” next it’s gonna be about hitting 5 years, then eventually it’s just gonna be “he has to surpass Bruno because nobody will ever come this close again” and after that it’ll be about hitting 10 years because he’s so close. At some point you gotta prioritize telling a good story over hitting a milestone.
No one, and I mean casuals, knows who Bruno is. Everyone knows who Hulk Hogan is. Beating his record, which it is just because it isn't the number 1 doesn't mean it's not, will mean something.
The Annoi's and, more importantly, TKO, get to have someone in the top 3 of all time, racist Hulk Hogan is out like a symbolic passing of the torch. Plus, WWE can bring Hogan back for promos, interviews, etc.
Don't worry, the end game is to make Cody as big a household name as Hogan.
If Cody loses back to back Wrestlemania main events he will never ever be able to achieve the status of being face of the company. The crowd know a loser when WWE tells them who a loser is.
It still won't matter, honestly. There will be the initial feeling of "that's cool, he surpassed Hogan." Then we will shrug and not think about it anymore. That Hogan reign was just way, way too long ago. No matter how important it was at the time.
He is not wrong at all. Being a 16 time world champion just means you lost it 15 times.
He needs about 200 more defenses, though.
That's also important in the equation.
The issue is for some reason they have Michael Cole, the face commentator, fangirl over the dude without actually calling out all the flaws in Roman’s obvious heel logic. Tells you WWE still wants to make sure Roman is above everyone else, even if the matches technically still end in typical bs fashion or he never defends
The wild part is that Michael Cole will absolutely call it out in the moment. Like when Solo hit the spike on Cody last year it was called out, but then as soon as the pin count is over, it's like that's all erased and it's back to reciting how many days Roman has been champion and how he's an unstoppable titan.
It's like the ring bell causes instant short term memory loss in the commentators lol
It's this cognitive dissonance that makes it impossible for me to enjoy most WWE commentary. Listening to it and having a functioning brain that tries to make sense of the schizophrenic hypocrisy that engulfs Cole makes me wish for a 'no commentary' option.
They rely on people not thinking beyond the instant moment they're in so that Cole can say two things minutes apart that invalidate eachother entirely, and it seems that works on far too many fans for them to ever stop.
And Pat's breathless ballwashing of Roman doesn't help when he has to take a pause so pregnant it gives birth between syllables.
>He needs about 200 more defenses, though.
The problem is he's "lost" in more than half of the defenses he did make already! Bloodline interference after bloodline interference... Anyone else remember the KO match where reigns literally did lose but the ref just... Stopped counting...?
Who else was he suppose to defend it against?
Ric maintaining that aura while losing all the time *and* never winning clean just speaks to his charisma. I do not think Roman has that capability personally
I understand how you feel that way personally but from crowd reactions it is undisputable that Roman has maintained that aura for the vast majority of fans.
Oh no, I agree with that *because Roman never wrestles*. If Roman defended it like the above commentators mentioned, I refuse to believe the common viewer isn't going to notice the nothing but run in finishes.
They're completely different characters, though. It's a little weird that Roman is presented and acknowledged as a badass even by his opponents, when he kinda never wins clean?
Flair was a chicken shit heel, it's expected for him to cheat every single time.
This. At least the opponents are nowadays finally acknowledging that he needs so much help. It’s still annoying to hear Michael Cole get mad over the interference for 10 seconds before he goes back to sucking Roman off on commentary like it was a clean win
He’s not seen as a “badass” by other wrestlers, wtf is this entire thread collectively gaslighting about what’s actually happening?
He’s seen as a final boss and a master manipulator. Giovanni from Pokémon wasn’t the best trainer in the region yet he was the insurmountable odds given how woven into the world and society he was: to beat him you needed to beat his entire organization of goons and commanders, AND he was a corrupt gym leader AND you didn’t actually beat him fully the first time so his goons try to bring him back in the sequel.
Smark wrestling ruined so much storytelling in this sport. You’re either a “badass” or a “chickenshit”. As if people like Triple H didn’t exist in the past.
You're purposely ignoring my point
The commentary team and his opponents almost never call Roman out for needing help constantly. Why is his reign supposed to be so impressive, in kayfabe, if he hasn't defended his belt without help in years? That's what we're complaining about, there's a dissonance between what Roman actually is and the way everyone around him treats him
Ric Flair was presented as a very talented wrestler who was also a cheater and a prick. Nobody claimed heel Ric Flair was "dominant" at the time, because that's not what dominance means. And also, it's much more impressive to cheat to win than it is to constantly need help from Solo lmao, at least that shows cleverness
Your comment about smark wrestling or whatever has nothing to do with what I said lol, I love Roman's character, it's the presentation and some of the booking I have a problem with.
Flair was a different animal. First Flair would win clean sometime, going over Ronnie Garvin in that classic cage match is the first thing that springs to mind. But even when he cheated, a lot of the time it was Flair himself puling tights, sneaking in knucks or something similar to win. HE was the dirtiest player in the game and you had to get past what he did to win. His run was so long you can find times the Horsemen or someone else jumped in to give him a win of course, but never as consistently as with Roman's current run.
For months (since the Lesnar feud?) it has felt like Roman's finishes have basically been ref goes down while he is beat, someone from the bloodline hops in (usually with a hoodie on), interferes with the match and Roman wins. The matches themselves are the weak link in presenting him as a monster, because they are smashing it with every other part of the character. He would have been better served just going over KO and/or Sami clean.
I hate this idea that losing the championship is like a big point against someone's career. Its wrestling, the championship is meant to move around to keep shit interesting, and it keeps everyone on a closer kayfabe power level. Plus, it means the champion actually shows up regularly.
I want reigns on average to be much smaller time frame. Something like 6 months on average, and maybe a little over 9 at the far end. The fact that there's any probability of a 4th year of this in the modern industry is just insanity to me. Cody losing last year was already jumping the shark, if for some ungodly reason Cody loses again, just throw the whole WWE into the shark infested waters.
I feel like in recent years it has become more openly talked about like a choreographed stunt show, but at the same time treated more like a legitimate sport.
A long title reign for a boxer is an accomplishment - nobody can beat em, they're the best because they never lose. A long title reign for a pro wrestler is lazy writing. And yet they talk about Roman like he's unbeatable. Well of course he's unbeatable if the storyboard says he wins.
Exactly. The only thing is: Roman isn’t on TV enough to justify such a long reign. This Bloodline stuff ran out of juice well over a year ago and only got reinvigorated because of the Rock
I would argue the juice was only really gone when that summerslam match was such a slog and there wasn’t really anywhere to go after it. I really enjoyed all of the tribal conflict stuff and then Jimmy rejoining and going back to status quo was really rough
yeah the bloodline stuff peaked with the sami shit and ending at summerslam would’ve also been fitting but since then it’s just feeling too dragged out at this point
The Sami turn (hitting Roman with the chair) was one of the absolute greatest moments story-wise. It really should have been the peak of the entire bloodline saga at that point.
The way to go was to have Roman snap and just destroy Jey Uso so badly that the elders revoke his tribal chief status out of disgust. Write the tribal chief match as a straight one-on-one contest where cheating is strictly forbidden rather than a lame no DQ match.
After losing his family, Roman becomes a paranoid, feral maniac obsessed with keeping the title as its all he has left, eventually leading to his downfall at WM40, where Solo leaves him and Cody wins clean.
IMO it should have ended at Summerslam with either Jey or Cody winning the title. Sami and Jey getting their tag victories seemed to set up the end coming for Roman.
Yeah, the impressive part isn't that Ric Flair was a 16 time world champion. The impressive part was that Ric had reigns that went 800 days, 600 days, and three that were over 400 days, while also becoming a 16 time champion.
What's also impressive is that his first world title match was 1977 and his last world title match was 2007, so he was a contender for 30 years. What's impressive is that he spent over a decade of his career as a world champion.
Since his first title win was in 1981 and his last title was lost in 2000, that means he spent more than half of his main event run as a world champion. So from 1981 to 2000 you'd have had better odds guessing Ric Flair was a world champion than you'd have flipping a coin and guessing which side. That's what makes him an impressive champion.
Also, if you add up all of his title reigns (world and non-world), Ric was champion for about 16 years of his career. 16 years is definitely more impressive than 16 titles. I wish they'd talk more about those kinds of statistics.
Well the problem is right now he doesnt even show up to brag about it or show up for announcers to play him up. We all know 16 time world champion because they drilled it into heads every time they show up, with roman youll only hear "he is the longest reigning champion..." once every blue moon
I really never understood how people don't see that he's playing his role perfectly. He's the final boss mega-heel with the mega-million contract that he finessed the company into giving him. If you were a heel champion in the wrestling industry, you'd KILL for Roman's contract.
Not only that, but when he does show up, it MATTERS. That's a rare feat in today's oversaturated world.
I don't care about how many defenses he's done. I only care about the quality and investment of them. I've been invested his entire run, and I personally wouldn't be mad if he held it even longer. I do think Cody wins at Mania, but I'll support Roman as long as he goes for.
I think it was a JBL and HHH segment where HHH made fun of JBL being a one time champion and JBL said that’s good because that means he’s only been beat once.
I swear I can never take Triple H seriously when he does that shit. Like, my guy. Your wife was in charge of Creative. Of course you're a 10+ time champion.
I will say I hope we can move past this after reigns and Gunther lose the titles. Rhea looks to be holding the belt for 300+ days. Seth’s had the belt for 300+ (he is likely losing it in a couple weeks). Logan looks like he’s gonna hold the belt till probably summerslam I think that’ll be around 300 days. I like when the wealth can be spread with the titles. this new trend of people holding the belts for years on end is getting old to me.
If only one person has a crazy long reign, that’s must-see tv. If everyone has long reigns, but the start times are all staggered, that’s fine too. But when titles only change hands at Wrestlemania, the rest of your entire year doesn’t matter.
Exactly this. We need a good mix. You can have one or two at the same time period with staggered start times but not every title can only change at a Mania or Saudi event. You can't have a bunch of super dominant people in your promotion.
I think it makes sense for world title reigns to be very long but midcard belts work better when they get switched a few times a year and are defended regularly.
They used to treat Orton like a transition champion which add more fun for the title but now Orton had won it so many times he can’t really be in that roles anymore or he would probably be like 20x world champ or something by now.
Agreed on the timing. World titles should usually change at big shows, but they have more than one of those.
It seems like they are slowing storylines down in the HHH era, which necessarily extends championship runs. This is okay, but you still need some variety of cadence, if that makes sense.
I think it's 50/50 that Cody wins at WrestleMania, but he needs a 6 month to year long run. The story has been building for two years, it would feel pretty anticlimactic if Cody didn't hold it very long after going through all this.
I think it's because of MMA/wanting to be more sports based
In most combat sports the champion last at least a year. The ones that have short reigns are usually looked at as flukes/unimportant
I mean, that's because champions fight like, twice a year. Training camps, injury recovery, getting cleared by commissions, etc. Hell, the current UFC Welterweight champion won the belt in 2022 and only has 2 title defenses in that time!
Unless it’s heavyweight. Doesn’t matter how good some of those dudes are, there’s always guys out there with a King Kong right hand who can end an all-timer’s reign so quick. But that’s exactly why I love heavyweight most of the time.
While I agree on the length and quality of story-telling, the *amount of defenses* makes me feel like it's a completely drastic turn from the period where Orton and Cena have 1249301431 reigns between them. I get that he's an attraction and so his defenses are more built towards giant stages, but the fact that a secondary title was created because of this has always felt weird to me.
In general, I wish there was more focus on successful defences over length or number of title reigns.
This would be the obvious way to favouribly compare modern title runs against older records, too.
He didnt start defending sparsely until after WM38, feels like people forget prior to that he defended at every major show and beat like half the roster.
> but the fact that a secondary title was created because of this has always felt weird to me.
in contrast to a secondary title created for HHH in 2002 and then Raw in 2016?
Can’t say I disagree with that. When people look back it’ll be about how long his reign was. People will argue about the actual quality of defenses with the constant interferences and stuff but WWE will put together video packages that will make all of that null in the minds of newer fans ect
>WWE will put together video packages that will make all of that null in the minds of newer fans ect
Revisionist history and video packages has always been what WWE does best
Yeah and guess what, the Rock held the belt for only a month heading into Mania. Maybe it was actually as good as people believe it was (from someone who lived it when it happened).
>People will argue about the actual quality of defenses with the constant interferences and stuff
I mean, all things considered, there was only interference in about half of his matches. the Problem is that for the last year, he only shows up half the time.
You'd think, but it's more like he only shows up for the half that have interference. His last clean championship defence was the one against Owens last year.
With a reign this long the past like year and half has been filled with inference finishes that makes it worse since he doesn’t defend that much. People don’t often think back to him beating Strowman or Rey anymore since it’s become more likely that some Bloodline interference happens for the past couple years.
Orange Cassidy defended the AEW International title 31 times in his first run of about 320 days. Reigns has defended his belt about 27 times in his 1,000+ reign.
I prefer lots of reigns. Keeps it from growing stale. I feel it’s better when the competition for the title is so fierce that it could change hands on any given night.
I think he's talking about himself playing hot potato with the title ( like how they booked Charlotte against Sasha then claimed she got over 5 title reigns) which I think is a fair point.
I feel like it depends - a long run where Roman defends it more often would have felt better than this run where the belt only gets defended at A-shows.
I think there's an inbetween. You can have longer title reigns with more defenses or shorter 3-5 month reigns that dont feel like hot potato type ones.
Having 3+ years with not many defenses imo isn't the right avenue either especially when the defenses end in fuckery
Personally, I think Orange Cassidy's run with the AEW International title was way more enjoyable than Roman's current run because Cassidy was a fighting champion. He defended against any and all challengers and persevered in different ways when pushed to the limit. Whenever Roman has a title match, we already know some Bloodline bullshit is going to happen to let him hold onto it. Shit's boring
How? It just means the wrestlers are good enough to beat each other on any given night and there's fierce competition for the title. Unless you're just doing Vince Russo type of hot potato reigns, then yeah maybe.
As opposed to the champion winning each time by interference? There's no aura to Roman's reign (pun intended), you just need to neutralize outside interference. Which so far all the faces have been too stupid to do
I have no problem with Edge, Batista, Cena, Orton holding the belts like 60 combined times because on any given night they could beat eachother and that was exciting. On no given night does it actually feel like anyone can beat Reigns/Gunther now because it has to be Mania which weakens every other cards drama.
If they're doing it for every champ, I fully agree but Roman's has been very novel. I hope once he drops it, we go back to a typical rotating champion situation.
I don't care about length of a reign or how many times you won the title. The quality of the defenses on a consistent basis is key to me. And on that note, I haven't been a big fan of this long reign. Bloodline stuff was interesting for awhile, but over the last year it hasn't been very good.
The Okada reign from 2016 to 2018 is still the best title reign in my opinion
I think it was Lawler who held (or maybe still holds) the non-WWE specific record for most championships. I remember him saying “yeah and I don’t have any of them now, so how many times do you think I lost?”
I think your view of this reign is probably also aligned with how you view the industry.
Is it about matches, or story? Because Romans story’s has been omnipresent since he was revealed to be in alliance with Heyman.
Dude wrestles twice or three times a year. Yea no shit he'd rather have that as opposed to working night in and night out. I don't blame him.
Who I DO blame is WWE. This 4 year run has been nonsense. Roman is treated like some unbeatable force when he constantly has outside help from the Bloodline. It's wrestling, I get that guys will cheat, but it used to be a fact that the announcers would call them on it, particularly when they cheat each and every time to save their ass.
Roman is a chicken-shit heel who has been presented as an immortal all-timer and it's dumb af.
cena was many things especially as supercena, but part-time world champion is not one of them because at least cena showed up every week to entertain people especially those who hated his guts and he always won without help
On paper I agree that a long reign is better than multiple reigns, since they can be short. But in reality Roman's situation sucks. He is barely there, he rarely defends the title when he is there and his actual reign has been lackluster. The Bloodline story is what's memorable, not his defenses.
Gunther is a better example of a long great title reign. The guy is out there every single week cutting promos. He's working non title matches. His matches always deliver and very rarely do they actually involve interference from Imperium.
When it comes to total reigns some runs are impressive but then you have boosted stats like Charlotte. It's incredibly obvious WWE wants her to beat her dad's record. That's why they gave her so much short reigns and title matches with little build.
So I agree with Roman in principle but his reign will hopefully be remembered as very hollow. There is a lot of greatness in there but **a lot** of empty space too. Condense his run by 200 days then I think the quality would be a lot better since when he does have matches they're bangers and when he is on the mic it's usually can't miss stuff.
>Gunther is a better example of a long great title reign. The guy is out there every single week cutting promos. He's working non title matches. His matches always deliver and very rarely do they actually involve interference from Imperium.
This is what gets me; Gunther is doing what Roman SAYS he's doing; Gunther's held his title for ages, but is a consistent presence and constantly defends his belt. And most importantly, he does it ALONE. Gunther is a heel who is as dominant as he they say he is and we can see it for ourselves.
When it's all said and done, people are going to look at what he accomplished during this reign, as opposed to how long it was. Like Mick Foley said, nobody cares about the statistics, they care about the moments.
To Roman's credit, he's had a lot of great moments during this reign, nobody can deny that. But I feel like the second he went part-time is going to make it much more contentious than it would have been if he dropped it last year.
You see how people quickly turned on the latter half of MJF's reign despite how good it started?
And you can say what you want about Cena; but he won every one of his titles on his own without help. Roman has rarely done that, which mares his "dominance"
In kayfabe it is a more impressive feat. Every time I heard WWE going on and on about guys like Cena, Flair, Orton, HHH being 14+ time world champions I always think of that RVD promo on Booker T where he’s like “man I cant believe you lost the WCW Championship 5 times”
lol at the people in here saying that this is stale or that the lack of defences somehow matter. If reigns was out putting on 60 minute title matches every week you’d complain that he wins the same way every time. Just the exact same way that if he was winning clean every title fight you’d say that he’s burying the entire roster
Wrestling is probably as mainstream as it’s been for a looooong time and are doing the biggest business they’ve ever done, with reigns at the top popping the crowd whenever his music hits.
Roman has honesty only had one match in between last Mania and today that really truly mattered and that was against Jey at Summerslam. If you think that’s acceptable as the flagship champion of the company then I guess more power to you but for me that’s a no dawg.
The quality does speak for itself. If you've seen one Reigns match during this reign, you've seen them all because it's the same match. The same things happen in every match, copy and pasted. So it is quality, low quality.
You know what's crazy? WWE is bestowing Reigns with this historic title reign, yet, let's be real for a second, I assure you if you adjust for inflation, he wouldn't even be considered one of company's biggest draws in history. And to augment upon that, he has essentially zero mainstream relevance compared to many other superstars throughout history.
Honestly, you give Reigns the early 90s WWF roster, I promise you he would do Diesel levels of business.
People react to him and he makes the company money - I guess that’s the quality they refer to. Actually defending the title in a decent way is another story
One thing that people need to understand is that quality will always be better than quantity. I grew up with Super Cena and, to be honest, I can't think of any reign of his that I'd say today "That reign was great", MAYBE the American title, but that's it.
He's absolutely right.
Longer runs make the reigns prestigious. But I mean Charlotte was there for 2 years and won it 10 times already or whatever? They were flipping it too much back in the day. Nobody's going to remember like "This is what happened the 5th, 8th, etc" time Randy won the belt but everyone's going to remember this reign.
People will always hate on something - so this is the thing they choose to hate on with reigns - but man, how quickly do you fans forget how horrible WWE was when it was just cena for like 10 years
Well yeah, who wouldn’t?
I don’t know about the quality thing though….hes basically done the same thing the entire time. They found what he’s good at and he’s been able to run with it, in large part, due to the incredible talent and stories around him. Not saying he doesn’t deserve credit, and it’s his reign that holds it together, but they lucked out quite a few times (like Sami…Cody and Rock situation now) that elevated and extended the life of this all.
What quality? Quality of matches that are all structured the exact same way or quality of storylines, where it only got interesting because of Sami, Jey, Cody and the Rock. WWE is a better product now, not because of him, but in spite of him. The product as a whole is so good and he's been such a non-integral part of why it's good as a whole. The universal champhionship has been an afterthought throughout most of his reign unless one of the people I mentioned above are involved.
Every title defense has resulted in outside interference. Seriously, how many of his defenses have ended cleanly? Can someone look up this because I'd love to see how many matches weren't carried by Uso/Solo interference
The quality literally is not there at all, WWE has presented him in an absolute masterclass way. Other than that, his reign has been largelt forgettable
He’s beaten Bryan, Cesaro, Riddle, Mysterio, Cena, Big E and Goldberg all clean in this title run. Yeah the interference could be more creative but people really overstate how chicken shit he really is.
Makes sense.
Even for Cena, are you ever gonna remember a specific title run from him besides for a few notable one? But for Reigns, you'll always remember he was the champ for years.
I dont need to remember cena for his title reigns because cena was entertaining to watch whether he had a title or not.
I will only remember Reigns for his title because there is nothing else to remember him by. He's not good
I’ll remember he was champ for three years, actually showed and defended the belt probably less than half that length of time, and that it was directly tied to a massive storyline that ran out of steam multiple times and got stale over and over again.
While he's right, it hardly applies to himself. So few defenses and always cheating to retain? I can't get behind that. I appreciate his reign as its a storytelling device, but on its own, I much prefer guys like Orton and HHH becoming world champion over 10 times.
Flip flopping the title cheapens the competitors and the title. Like when Charlotte and Sasha boosted each others' reign numbers, it felt like they were intentionally inflating everything. An argument can certainly be made that it was supposed to showcase two even talent playing one upsmanship, but that is simply not how it came off to me.
Even going back to the original Undisputed Title, that thing just went from talent to talent to get them the strap. I get it. And that was kind of amusing, but also cheapened the title.
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He’s currently around 90 days shy of surpassing the combined length of all of Cena’s 16 world title reigns with just this run.
And he showed up maybe a third of time of Cena
"You won't see me." - Roman
But his time is now!
Lol..nice one
At least we could see him
By way of wrestling, way less.
That’s a big maybe.
[удалено]
Quality of reign, not quantity of days.
Serious question I'm not meaning to be a dick by asking this, why does that matter to you as a fan? Cena was absolutely unbearable during the vast majority of his run on top, he was corny, overexposed, and never had anything as good as the peak of the bloodline story last year going for him, but that's besides the point, I'll admit Roman should show up a little more, and he should have dropped the belt at WrestleMania 39, but no world champion should ever be on TV as much as we've been accustomed to seeing them over the past 30 years. It just leads to guys getting stale very quickly. Showing up means nothing when you're showing up to do filler, which is what most champions who show up every week do.
>Cena was absolutely unbearable during the vast majority of his run on top, he was corny, overexposed, and never had anything as good as the peak of the bloodline story last year going for him Plenty of Cena revisionism the past 4 years which lead me to believe that the kids who Cena was marketed to in his prime are now the "smart fans" on these messageboards. I did genuinely enjoy a fair amount of Cena's run - and by all accounts he's a standup guy who went above and beyond with his work with Make A Wish - but some of the things people look back on with rose tinted glasses nowadays are the same reasons he was resented back in the day.
That’s just the nature of internet wrestling fans. I’m old enough to remember internet fans hating Rock and Stone Cold, wanting the likes of Jericho and He Who Must Not Be Named to be promoted to the top of the card.
bryan danielson is right. IWC are fickle
But what does he know, he was never any good! /s
TIL Voldemort wrestled
Cena had two real periods of bad time at the top - the initial push in 2006-07 where he wasn't accepted by the fans and they tied themselves in knots trying to get him over In retrospect it was probably the right call to push through and establish him as a top face because they'd didnt have replacements on hand for a long term run at that The second bad period was 2010-11 where the company was in a real rut and they got cold feet about pulling the trigger on the Nexus because I guess they figured if they diminish Cena, it could have been devastating and they didn't trust others to pick up the slack. But it was a bad call. His 2007 feud against HBK and his 2011 feud against Punk both pulled the company upwards a bit and ended the span of a bad time at the top. Besides that, I think his career was mostly solid at the top - the Rock feuds arguably kept the company from total collapse pre-Network, and from 2014 onwards, he has been putting people over while retaining solid mic ability and credibility. His initial stuff with JBL was good, and the Rumble Return in 2008 was well done. His Brock feuds were always entertaining.
He organically got over the first time around, hence how he got the spot. Afterwards is another story of course.
He got over as a midcard act, and his initial title push was accepted. What wasn't was the attempt to make him the new Stone Cold type hegemonic babyface especially with a character change fans didn't ask for. Yes, the rapping had an expiration date, but the Marine Cena thing, that just didn't make sense and the fan demos weren't into it. Ironically that act might have worked a few yrs later when WWE went PG, but they pushed Cena even further into being the Fruity Pebbles Childhood Hero character
I am one of those people. I started watching at ten years old in the Summer of 2007, right around the time when Cena was at his zenith as a top guy. Even as a ten year old, I thought he was so lame compared to guys like Edge, Jeff Hardy, and Randy Orton. Edge in particular was my dude back then.
Unpopular opninion: black shorts chain gang cena looked way cooler than both edge & orton.
I unironically believe the chain and lock was one of the best entrance props ever.
Cena redeemed himself quite a bit with his US Title run forward, where he became a lot more mortal, helping to put over newer talent (he made KO look like a million bucks on his RAW debut for instance) and I think that's also helped bring people a bit more around to Cena not just being all bad. In essence, once Cena stopped being the face of the WWE, people started to appreciate him for what he was, but I think there was a concerted effort on Cena's part to do that.
It’s literally nostalgia and i’m genuinely surprised Cena gets so much love when he hasn’t changed his character at all aside from just losing all the time now.
The problem wasn’t really with Cena (outside of the cringey PG promos from 2009-10), it was that he was shoved down our throats and every other wrestler on the show (outside of established legends who predated him) was made to look inferior to him. Now that he’s not shoved down our throats, and other wrestlers aren’t constantly being portrayed as not being on his level, there’s less reason to dislike him.
I think /u/Mud-Bray was just stating it as a fact, and not saying it was either intrinsically good or bad. My personal take on it is this: 1.) Roman had five televised title defenses last year. Why should I believe a title is prestigious if it’s rarely defended? Surviving five title defenses in one year isn’t impressive to me. The champion should be more present. 2.) The biggest problem with Roman’s reign isn’t the (in)frequency in which he appears, it’s that everyone has clocked since Clash at the Castle ‘22 that he’s not losing the title at any event besides WM. That’s made all his non-Mania title defenses seem like foregone conclusions. I actually disagree that he should have lost at WM 39, by the way. Considering how big this WM is shaping up to be—and how invested people are in Cody’s story (and how hot he’s gotten after last year’s loss)—I think WWE has retroactively been proven right, so long as they actually pull the trigger this year.
People like different things but for me I can't stand not having the world champion on TV every week. I'm not asking for a match every week and actually think less matches are better but for me the world champion should be on television week in week out driving the main event story forward. The problem I have with Roman is that when he takes weeks or months off his cousins and Heyman fill the gaps in the story which leads to the product being inferior. I don't care what message Heyman is delivering from Roman on the phone to his opponent or watching Solo Sikoa wrestle on behalf of Roman because he doesn't care to show up because it all feels pointless unless the champion is on screen.
Because now the reign isn’t as entertaining anymore and is only being extended to chase 3rd place at kayfabe record list, all to the detriment of anyone trying to reach main event status. Sure Cena had his lows but at least they’d take the title off of him and solidify other main eventers. He’d actually have back and forth feuds. Everyone just looks like a bitch if they lose to Roman back to back.
I think it’s because a lot of Gen Z fans weren’t around during the Super Cena run. For me, personally, I began watching the WWE in 2014, and not long after I saw Cena get destroyed by Brock Lesnar. So I never had any frame of, “Booo Cena is booked too strong,” because from the time I began watching, he’d begun putting over talent and putting on great matches. So that’s the Cena I know, and I totally understand he sucked during the Nexus run and during a lot of his time as the top star, but I never saw that run of his. For me, though, I did see Super Roman and I hated that. But at least Cena could cut a promo.
Ah, fuck. If Triple H realises this, we'll see Cody lose, just so Roman can boast about it and they can tout it as a legendary run that is longer then Cena's.
I still think there is a 50% he loses because HHH knows how close he is to surpassing Hogan.
Fuck it. Roman Reigns will reign until 2041 then retires via smashing both belts down on Cody with the words "YOURS NOW, BITCH!"
Idk why everyone keeps acting like surpassing Hogan is such a big accomplishment. He’s only third place. It’s not a record. Is there really that big of a difference between third and fourth place to justify extending the reign beyond its natural conclusion?
Honestly, the only people who will give a shit are older fans who actually remember Hulkamania. And even many of us still won't care. It's a big part of WWE & wrestling history, but it's also the distant past.
It isn't even the right title that is breaking the record. The long record is on the Universal Title, which is effectively retired at this point, unless they want to lose the lineage of the WWE Championship, which obviously they won't
Anything you can make a spectacle of is worth making a spectacle of. Sure, fourth and third aren't far apart, but people know the name Hulk Hogan still. They know he was a big time wrestler back in the day, and they probably don't know shit else about him. If Roman can surpass the old great, that's pretty sick, or at least that's the thought process. I'm sick as a dog of title reigns taking god damn forever, let alone 3+ years.
To some degree I get it, but I also feel like it’s a slippery slope. First it was “he has to retain because he’s so close to 1000 days” then it became “he has to retain because he’s close to Hogan” next it’s gonna be about hitting 5 years, then eventually it’s just gonna be “he has to surpass Bruno because nobody will ever come this close again” and after that it’ll be about hitting 10 years because he’s so close. At some point you gotta prioritize telling a good story over hitting a milestone.
An arbitrary milestone at that.
No one, and I mean casuals, knows who Bruno is. Everyone knows who Hulk Hogan is. Beating his record, which it is just because it isn't the number 1 doesn't mean it's not, will mean something. The Annoi's and, more importantly, TKO, get to have someone in the top 3 of all time, racist Hulk Hogan is out like a symbolic passing of the torch. Plus, WWE can bring Hogan back for promos, interviews, etc. Don't worry, the end game is to make Cody as big a household name as Hogan.
If Cody loses back to back Wrestlemania main events he will never ever be able to achieve the status of being face of the company. The crowd know a loser when WWE tells them who a loser is.
It still won't matter, honestly. There will be the initial feeling of "that's cool, he surpassed Hogan." Then we will shrug and not think about it anymore. That Hogan reign was just way, way too long ago. No matter how important it was at the time.
Cody is 38 already - I don't think he has very many years left at the top. If they don't pull the trigger now I'm not sure whether they ever will.
And he isn't beating Hogan's place as it's not the same title Hogan held.
If everyone else loses their title at WM...I'm gonna be sweating when Roman/Cody starts lol. Although I just can't see Gunther & Rhea losing.
That's like Punk's one reign being longer than The Rock's 8 combined
And John Cena's longest world title reign was 380 days, a year basically.
Must be easy when he has a match 3 times a year
That is an insane stat.
He is not wrong at all. Being a 16 time world champion just means you lost it 15 times. He needs about 200 more defenses, though. That's also important in the equation.
Also he’s a delusional heel talking at least half in kayfabe
The issue is for some reason they have Michael Cole, the face commentator, fangirl over the dude without actually calling out all the flaws in Roman’s obvious heel logic. Tells you WWE still wants to make sure Roman is above everyone else, even if the matches technically still end in typical bs fashion or he never defends
The wild part is that Michael Cole will absolutely call it out in the moment. Like when Solo hit the spike on Cody last year it was called out, but then as soon as the pin count is over, it's like that's all erased and it's back to reciting how many days Roman has been champion and how he's an unstoppable titan. It's like the ring bell causes instant short term memory loss in the commentators lol
It's this cognitive dissonance that makes it impossible for me to enjoy most WWE commentary. Listening to it and having a functioning brain that tries to make sense of the schizophrenic hypocrisy that engulfs Cole makes me wish for a 'no commentary' option. They rely on people not thinking beyond the instant moment they're in so that Cole can say two things minutes apart that invalidate eachother entirely, and it seems that works on far too many fans for them to ever stop. And Pat's breathless ballwashing of Roman doesn't help when he has to take a pause so pregnant it gives birth between syllables.
right... like what quality has he actually put on display...? that Solo can interfere on his behalf like no one's business...?
Are you forgetting about the unforeseeable Uso in a hoodie surprise?
>He needs about 200 more defenses, though. The problem is he's "lost" in more than half of the defenses he did make already! Bloodline interference after bloodline interference... Anyone else remember the KO match where reigns literally did lose but the ref just... Stopped counting...? Who else was he suppose to defend it against?
You should have seen Ric Flair.
Ric maintaining that aura while losing all the time *and* never winning clean just speaks to his charisma. I do not think Roman has that capability personally
I understand how you feel that way personally but from crowd reactions it is undisputable that Roman has maintained that aura for the vast majority of fans.
Oh no, I agree with that *because Roman never wrestles*. If Roman defended it like the above commentators mentioned, I refuse to believe the common viewer isn't going to notice the nothing but run in finishes.
If Roman defended it far more not all of his opponents would be big names that need to be protected so it wouldn't be nothing but run in finishes.
I don't necessarily agree with that given how they've booked every Roman match for the past 2 years xP
They're completely different characters, though. It's a little weird that Roman is presented and acknowledged as a badass even by his opponents, when he kinda never wins clean? Flair was a chicken shit heel, it's expected for him to cheat every single time.
This. At least the opponents are nowadays finally acknowledging that he needs so much help. It’s still annoying to hear Michael Cole get mad over the interference for 10 seconds before he goes back to sucking Roman off on commentary like it was a clean win
He’s not seen as a “badass” by other wrestlers, wtf is this entire thread collectively gaslighting about what’s actually happening? He’s seen as a final boss and a master manipulator. Giovanni from Pokémon wasn’t the best trainer in the region yet he was the insurmountable odds given how woven into the world and society he was: to beat him you needed to beat his entire organization of goons and commanders, AND he was a corrupt gym leader AND you didn’t actually beat him fully the first time so his goons try to bring him back in the sequel. Smark wrestling ruined so much storytelling in this sport. You’re either a “badass” or a “chickenshit”. As if people like Triple H didn’t exist in the past.
You're purposely ignoring my point The commentary team and his opponents almost never call Roman out for needing help constantly. Why is his reign supposed to be so impressive, in kayfabe, if he hasn't defended his belt without help in years? That's what we're complaining about, there's a dissonance between what Roman actually is and the way everyone around him treats him Ric Flair was presented as a very talented wrestler who was also a cheater and a prick. Nobody claimed heel Ric Flair was "dominant" at the time, because that's not what dominance means. And also, it's much more impressive to cheat to win than it is to constantly need help from Solo lmao, at least that shows cleverness Your comment about smark wrestling or whatever has nothing to do with what I said lol, I love Roman's character, it's the presentation and some of the booking I have a problem with.
Flair was a different animal. First Flair would win clean sometime, going over Ronnie Garvin in that classic cage match is the first thing that springs to mind. But even when he cheated, a lot of the time it was Flair himself puling tights, sneaking in knucks or something similar to win. HE was the dirtiest player in the game and you had to get past what he did to win. His run was so long you can find times the Horsemen or someone else jumped in to give him a win of course, but never as consistently as with Roman's current run. For months (since the Lesnar feud?) it has felt like Roman's finishes have basically been ref goes down while he is beat, someone from the bloodline hops in (usually with a hoodie on), interferes with the match and Roman wins. The matches themselves are the weak link in presenting him as a monster, because they are smashing it with every other part of the character. He would have been better served just going over KO and/or Sami clean.
I hate this idea that losing the championship is like a big point against someone's career. Its wrestling, the championship is meant to move around to keep shit interesting, and it keeps everyone on a closer kayfabe power level. Plus, it means the champion actually shows up regularly. I want reigns on average to be much smaller time frame. Something like 6 months on average, and maybe a little over 9 at the far end. The fact that there's any probability of a 4th year of this in the modern industry is just insanity to me. Cody losing last year was already jumping the shark, if for some ungodly reason Cody loses again, just throw the whole WWE into the shark infested waters.
I feel like in recent years it has become more openly talked about like a choreographed stunt show, but at the same time treated more like a legitimate sport. A long title reign for a boxer is an accomplishment - nobody can beat em, they're the best because they never lose. A long title reign for a pro wrestler is lazy writing. And yet they talk about Roman like he's unbeatable. Well of course he's unbeatable if the storyboard says he wins.
Exactly. The only thing is: Roman isn’t on TV enough to justify such a long reign. This Bloodline stuff ran out of juice well over a year ago and only got reinvigorated because of the Rock
I would argue the juice was only really gone when that summerslam match was such a slog and there wasn’t really anywhere to go after it. I really enjoyed all of the tribal conflict stuff and then Jimmy rejoining and going back to status quo was really rough
yeah the bloodline stuff peaked with the sami shit and ending at summerslam would’ve also been fitting but since then it’s just feeling too dragged out at this point
The Sami turn (hitting Roman with the chair) was one of the absolute greatest moments story-wise. It really should have been the peak of the entire bloodline saga at that point.
The way to go was to have Roman snap and just destroy Jey Uso so badly that the elders revoke his tribal chief status out of disgust. Write the tribal chief match as a straight one-on-one contest where cheating is strictly forbidden rather than a lame no DQ match. After losing his family, Roman becomes a paranoid, feral maniac obsessed with keeping the title as its all he has left, eventually leading to his downfall at WM40, where Solo leaves him and Cody wins clean.
The thing was, Tribal Combat was originally promoted as “No Interference” and along the way that changed.
IMO it should have ended at Summerslam with either Jey or Cody winning the title. Sami and Jey getting their tag victories seemed to set up the end coming for Roman.
Yeah, the impressive part isn't that Ric Flair was a 16 time world champion. The impressive part was that Ric had reigns that went 800 days, 600 days, and three that were over 400 days, while also becoming a 16 time champion. What's also impressive is that his first world title match was 1977 and his last world title match was 2007, so he was a contender for 30 years. What's impressive is that he spent over a decade of his career as a world champion. Since his first title win was in 1981 and his last title was lost in 2000, that means he spent more than half of his main event run as a world champion. So from 1981 to 2000 you'd have had better odds guessing Ric Flair was a world champion than you'd have flipping a coin and guessing which side. That's what makes him an impressive champion. Also, if you add up all of his title reigns (world and non-world), Ric was champion for about 16 years of his career. 16 years is definitely more impressive than 16 titles. I wish they'd talk more about those kinds of statistics.
Well the problem is right now he doesnt even show up to brag about it or show up for announcers to play him up. We all know 16 time world champion because they drilled it into heads every time they show up, with roman youll only hear "he is the longest reigning champion..." once every blue moon
It means you won 16 times too.
That is so stupid because it also means the exact opposite in that they may have lost but they were also good enough to win it back 14+ times.
I really never understood how people don't see that he's playing his role perfectly. He's the final boss mega-heel with the mega-million contract that he finessed the company into giving him. If you were a heel champion in the wrestling industry, you'd KILL for Roman's contract. Not only that, but when he does show up, it MATTERS. That's a rare feat in today's oversaturated world. I don't care about how many defenses he's done. I only care about the quality and investment of them. I've been invested his entire run, and I personally wouldn't be mad if he held it even longer. I do think Cody wins at Mania, but I'll support Roman as long as he goes for.
Facts ☝️
I think it was a JBL and HHH segment where HHH made fun of JBL being a one time champion and JBL said that’s good because that means he’s only been beat once.
I swear I can never take Triple H seriously when he does that shit. Like, my guy. Your wife was in charge of Creative. Of course you're a 10+ time champion.
I will say I hope we can move past this after reigns and Gunther lose the titles. Rhea looks to be holding the belt for 300+ days. Seth’s had the belt for 300+ (he is likely losing it in a couple weeks). Logan looks like he’s gonna hold the belt till probably summerslam I think that’ll be around 300 days. I like when the wealth can be spread with the titles. this new trend of people holding the belts for years on end is getting old to me.
If only one person has a crazy long reign, that’s must-see tv. If everyone has long reigns, but the start times are all staggered, that’s fine too. But when titles only change hands at Wrestlemania, the rest of your entire year doesn’t matter.
Exactly this. We need a good mix. You can have one or two at the same time period with staggered start times but not every title can only change at a Mania or Saudi event. You can't have a bunch of super dominant people in your promotion.
I think it makes sense for world title reigns to be very long but midcard belts work better when they get switched a few times a year and are defended regularly.
They used to treat Orton like a transition champion which add more fun for the title but now Orton had won it so many times he can’t really be in that roles anymore or he would probably be like 20x world champ or something by now.
Agreed on the timing. World titles should usually change at big shows, but they have more than one of those. It seems like they are slowing storylines down in the HHH era, which necessarily extends championship runs. This is okay, but you still need some variety of cadence, if that makes sense.
its not must see tv because we (think we) know theyre never going to end any streaks or change titles on regular tv.
Seriously. Of the mens singles belts, there's been ONE title change since August.
As a fan who started watching in the last 7 months, i need to see some movement
Rhea is already at 350+. She will have held it for over a year when Wrestlemania comes around.
I started watching again at money in the bank ‘22. Since I’ve been watching the only singles title that has changed hands is the US title.
Unfortunately you missed the absolute peak of professional wrestling that was the 24/7 title
If/when Cody wins I don’t see him holding onto the belt that long at least.
I think it's 50/50 that Cody wins at WrestleMania, but he needs a 6 month to year long run. The story has been building for two years, it would feel pretty anticlimactic if Cody didn't hold it very long after going through all this.
I would say there is a pretty good chance Gunther beats Cody for the undisputed title at Bash in Berlin.
But think of the ***HEAT*** if Damien Priest cashes in right after the match!
There is almost zero chance he doesn’t cash in on Drew or Seth
That's my take. He will cash in on a weakened or tired Drew or Seth.
I agree. It’s time for some hot potato.
I think it's because of MMA/wanting to be more sports based In most combat sports the champion last at least a year. The ones that have short reigns are usually looked at as flukes/unimportant
I mean, that's because champions fight like, twice a year. Training camps, injury recovery, getting cleared by commissions, etc. Hell, the current UFC Welterweight champion won the belt in 2022 and only has 2 title defenses in that time!
Unless it’s heavyweight. Doesn’t matter how good some of those dudes are, there’s always guys out there with a King Kong right hand who can end an all-timer’s reign so quick. But that’s exactly why I love heavyweight most of the time.
While I agree on the length and quality of story-telling, the *amount of defenses* makes me feel like it's a completely drastic turn from the period where Orton and Cena have 1249301431 reigns between them. I get that he's an attraction and so his defenses are more built towards giant stages, but the fact that a secondary title was created because of this has always felt weird to me.
In general, I wish there was more focus on successful defences over length or number of title reigns. This would be the obvious way to favouribly compare modern title runs against older records, too.
Its funny cause WWE can do that and they did it with Gunther, literally still happening. Longest reigning IC Champ and defends it all the time.
He didnt start defending sparsely until after WM38, feels like people forget prior to that he defended at every major show and beat like half the roster.
> but the fact that a secondary title was created because of this has always felt weird to me. in contrast to a secondary title created for HHH in 2002 and then Raw in 2016?
Famously beloved moments in Raw history
Can’t say I disagree with that. When people look back it’ll be about how long his reign was. People will argue about the actual quality of defenses with the constant interferences and stuff but WWE will put together video packages that will make all of that null in the minds of newer fans ect
>WWE will put together video packages that will make all of that null in the minds of newer fans ect Revisionist history and video packages has always been what WWE does best
They convinced a generation that The Rock/Stone Cold WM17 buildup not only didn't suck, but was the one of the best builds of all time
Yeah and guess what, the Rock held the belt for only a month heading into Mania. Maybe it was actually as good as people believe it was (from someone who lived it when it happened).
Shocking that a wrestling company would misrepresent the truth. The very idea.
I know right, next you're gonna tell me that they plan out who's gonna win in advance!
One thing that amazes me about Rock and Austin is that they had very short reigns yet they made the biggest impact besides Hogan in WWE.
>People will argue about the actual quality of defenses with the constant interferences and stuff I mean, all things considered, there was only interference in about half of his matches. the Problem is that for the last year, he only shows up half the time.
So by that math 1/4 of those matches in the last year have had interference, right?
You'd think, but it's more like he only shows up for the half that have interference. His last clean championship defence was the one against Owens last year.
With a reign this long the past like year and half has been filled with inference finishes that makes it worse since he doesn’t defend that much. People don’t often think back to him beating Strowman or Rey anymore since it’s become more likely that some Bloodline interference happens for the past couple years.
I mean, you need to show up and wrestle first to be a multiple world champ.
Good for you Roman! A quality title reign doesn't mean shit when you only defend it 3 times a year.
Orange Cassidy defended the AEW International title 31 times in his first run of about 320 days. Reigns has defended his belt about 27 times in his 1,000+ reign.
Orange Cassidys first run was also brilliant. The lose to Moxly. The promos up to it. It was just great.
ACKNOWLEDGE HIM (Orange Cassidy)
I prefer lots of reigns. Keeps it from growing stale. I feel it’s better when the competition for the title is so fierce that it could change hands on any given night.
I think he's talking about himself playing hot potato with the title ( like how they booked Charlotte against Sasha then claimed she got over 5 title reigns) which I think is a fair point.
REMATCH CLAUSE!!
I feel like it depends - a long run where Roman defends it more often would have felt better than this run where the belt only gets defended at A-shows.
Then the aura of the belt loses its value.
I think there's an inbetween. You can have longer title reigns with more defenses or shorter 3-5 month reigns that dont feel like hot potato type ones. Having 3+ years with not many defenses imo isn't the right avenue either especially when the defenses end in fuckery
Or having 3+ years of a reign and running through the entire fucking roster in that time makes everyone look like a chump.
Personally, I think Orange Cassidy's run with the AEW International title was way more enjoyable than Roman's current run because Cassidy was a fighting champion. He defended against any and all challengers and persevered in different ways when pushed to the limit. Whenever Roman has a title match, we already know some Bloodline bullshit is going to happen to let him hold onto it. Shit's boring
How? It just means the wrestlers are good enough to beat each other on any given night and there's fierce competition for the title. Unless you're just doing Vince Russo type of hot potato reigns, then yeah maybe.
The hottest period in WWE history, the Attitude Era, had tons of title changes. Didn’t make the belt have less value at all.
As opposed to the champion winning each time by interference? There's no aura to Roman's reign (pun intended), you just need to neutralize outside interference. Which so far all the faces have been too stupid to do
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I have no problem with Edge, Batista, Cena, Orton holding the belts like 60 combined times because on any given night they could beat eachother and that was exciting. On no given night does it actually feel like anyone can beat Reigns/Gunther now because it has to be Mania which weakens every other cards drama.
If they're doing it for every champ, I fully agree but Roman's has been very novel. I hope once he drops it, we go back to a typical rotating champion situation.
I don't care about length of a reign or how many times you won the title. The quality of the defenses on a consistent basis is key to me. And on that note, I haven't been a big fan of this long reign. Bloodline stuff was interesting for awhile, but over the last year it hasn't been very good. The Okada reign from 2016 to 2018 is still the best title reign in my opinion
That Okada IWGP Heavyweight Championship reign is the GOAT reign by which all other reigns are measured by, for me
Quality? Rarely showing up and having the same finish for every (rare) title match is quality?
I think it was Lawler who held (or maybe still holds) the non-WWE specific record for most championships. I remember him saying “yeah and I don’t have any of them now, so how many times do you think I lost?”
I think your view of this reign is probably also aligned with how you view the industry. Is it about matches, or story? Because Romans story’s has been omnipresent since he was revealed to be in alliance with Heyman.
Dude wrestles twice or three times a year. Yea no shit he'd rather have that as opposed to working night in and night out. I don't blame him. Who I DO blame is WWE. This 4 year run has been nonsense. Roman is treated like some unbeatable force when he constantly has outside help from the Bloodline. It's wrestling, I get that guys will cheat, but it used to be a fact that the announcers would call them on it, particularly when they cheat each and every time to save their ass. Roman is a chicken-shit heel who has been presented as an immortal all-timer and it's dumb af.
cena was many things especially as supercena, but part-time world champion is not one of them because at least cena showed up every week to entertain people especially those who hated his guts and he always won without help
On paper I agree that a long reign is better than multiple reigns, since they can be short. But in reality Roman's situation sucks. He is barely there, he rarely defends the title when he is there and his actual reign has been lackluster. The Bloodline story is what's memorable, not his defenses. Gunther is a better example of a long great title reign. The guy is out there every single week cutting promos. He's working non title matches. His matches always deliver and very rarely do they actually involve interference from Imperium. When it comes to total reigns some runs are impressive but then you have boosted stats like Charlotte. It's incredibly obvious WWE wants her to beat her dad's record. That's why they gave her so much short reigns and title matches with little build. So I agree with Roman in principle but his reign will hopefully be remembered as very hollow. There is a lot of greatness in there but **a lot** of empty space too. Condense his run by 200 days then I think the quality would be a lot better since when he does have matches they're bangers and when he is on the mic it's usually can't miss stuff.
>Gunther is a better example of a long great title reign. The guy is out there every single week cutting promos. He's working non title matches. His matches always deliver and very rarely do they actually involve interference from Imperium. This is what gets me; Gunther is doing what Roman SAYS he's doing; Gunther's held his title for ages, but is a consistent presence and constantly defends his belt. And most importantly, he does it ALONE. Gunther is a heel who is as dominant as he they say he is and we can see it for ourselves.
Honestly, he's kind of right. Cena may have held the title 16 times, but a good chunk of his reigns lasted a couple of months at best.
The quality of wrestling 11 times in a year.
That's about 5 or 6 matches more than he actually does
And having Solo interfere in almost all of them.
What quality?! He's never there anymore!
When it's all said and done, people are going to look at what he accomplished during this reign, as opposed to how long it was. Like Mick Foley said, nobody cares about the statistics, they care about the moments. To Roman's credit, he's had a lot of great moments during this reign, nobody can deny that. But I feel like the second he went part-time is going to make it much more contentious than it would have been if he dropped it last year. You see how people quickly turned on the latter half of MJF's reign despite how good it started? And you can say what you want about Cena; but he won every one of his titles on his own without help. Roman has rarely done that, which mares his "dominance"
In kayfabe it is a more impressive feat. Every time I heard WWE going on and on about guys like Cena, Flair, Orton, HHH being 14+ time world champions I always think of that RVD promo on Booker T where he’s like “man I cant believe you lost the WCW Championship 5 times”
Lmao, quality. Please lose so I can consider watching WWE again.
lol at the people in here saying that this is stale or that the lack of defences somehow matter. If reigns was out putting on 60 minute title matches every week you’d complain that he wins the same way every time. Just the exact same way that if he was winning clean every title fight you’d say that he’s burying the entire roster Wrestling is probably as mainstream as it’s been for a looooong time and are doing the biggest business they’ve ever done, with reigns at the top popping the crowd whenever his music hits.
Roman has honesty only had one match in between last Mania and today that really truly mattered and that was against Jey at Summerslam. If you think that’s acceptable as the flagship champion of the company then I guess more power to you but for me that’s a no dawg.
The quality does speak for itself. If you've seen one Reigns match during this reign, you've seen them all because it's the same match. The same things happen in every match, copy and pasted. So it is quality, low quality.
You know what's crazy? WWE is bestowing Reigns with this historic title reign, yet, let's be real for a second, I assure you if you adjust for inflation, he wouldn't even be considered one of company's biggest draws in history. And to augment upon that, he has essentially zero mainstream relevance compared to many other superstars throughout history. Honestly, you give Reigns the early 90s WWF roster, I promise you he would do Diesel levels of business.
Oh yeah real high quality shit he's been displaying 4 times a year.
What quality. Maybe 3 matches that are truly great most are average or below average
I don’t think he knows what quality means lol.
"Quality" lol
People react to him and he makes the company money - I guess that’s the quality they refer to. Actually defending the title in a decent way is another story
With a whole lot less defenses
One thing that people need to understand is that quality will always be better than quantity. I grew up with Super Cena and, to be honest, I can't think of any reign of his that I'd say today "That reign was great", MAYBE the American title, but that's it.
What 'quality' is he talking about though?
The quality of his run is shit though?
I’m sorry but I’ll never get the hype lol
He's absolutely right. Longer runs make the reigns prestigious. But I mean Charlotte was there for 2 years and won it 10 times already or whatever? They were flipping it too much back in the day. Nobody's going to remember like "This is what happened the 5th, 8th, etc" time Randy won the belt but everyone's going to remember this reign.
People will always hate on something - so this is the thing they choose to hate on with reigns - but man, how quickly do you fans forget how horrible WWE was when it was just cena for like 10 years
Well yeah, who wouldn’t? I don’t know about the quality thing though….hes basically done the same thing the entire time. They found what he’s good at and he’s been able to run with it, in large part, due to the incredible talent and stories around him. Not saying he doesn’t deserve credit, and it’s his reign that holds it together, but they lucked out quite a few times (like Sami…Cody and Rock situation now) that elevated and extended the life of this all.
What quality? Quality of matches that are all structured the exact same way or quality of storylines, where it only got interesting because of Sami, Jey, Cody and the Rock. WWE is a better product now, not because of him, but in spite of him. The product as a whole is so good and he's been such a non-integral part of why it's good as a whole. The universal champhionship has been an afterthought throughout most of his reign unless one of the people I mentioned above are involved.
"The quality of this run" is an all time hilarious line for him to be using
Every title defense has resulted in outside interference. Seriously, how many of his defenses have ended cleanly? Can someone look up this because I'd love to see how many matches weren't carried by Uso/Solo interference The quality literally is not there at all, WWE has presented him in an absolute masterclass way. Other than that, his reign has been largelt forgettable
He’s beaten Bryan, Cesaro, Riddle, Mysterio, Cena, Big E and Goldberg all clean in this title run. Yeah the interference could be more creative but people really overstate how chicken shit he really is.
Woah having the champship for years, barely having to defend it, and never losing is awesome?
i have to agree. this one run has been more iconic than many legends' reigns combined.
Makes sense. Even for Cena, are you ever gonna remember a specific title run from him besides for a few notable one? But for Reigns, you'll always remember he was the champ for years.
I think I’ll always remember that he was a part-time champ that barely showed up for work, much less to actually defend his title.
I dont need to remember cena for his title reigns because cena was entertaining to watch whether he had a title or not. I will only remember Reigns for his title because there is nothing else to remember him by. He's not good
I’ll remember he was champ for three years, actually showed and defended the belt probably less than half that length of time, and that it was directly tied to a massive storyline that ran out of steam multiple times and got stale over and over again.
LMAO how many times did he cheat during the title reign? How many times did Cena?
While he's right, it hardly applies to himself. So few defenses and always cheating to retain? I can't get behind that. I appreciate his reign as its a storytelling device, but on its own, I much prefer guys like Orton and HHH becoming world champion over 10 times.
You really would have hated Ric Flair and pretty much every heel in the 80’s. 🤫🤫🤫
Because Orton and HHH never ever cheated to retain, sure.
Flip flopping the title cheapens the competitors and the title. Like when Charlotte and Sasha boosted each others' reign numbers, it felt like they were intentionally inflating everything. An argument can certainly be made that it was supposed to showcase two even talent playing one upsmanship, but that is simply not how it came off to me. Even going back to the original Undisputed Title, that thing just went from talent to talent to get them the strap. I get it. And that was kind of amusing, but also cheapened the title.
The only time I was really into flip flopping between the same guys was the Usos and the New day in 2017. Every match was so awesome
I fully agree with Roman here. Give me one one super long run over a ton of short runs.
Length of combined reigns and number of successful defenses > number of Championship wins always.
Quality is an interesting term. His matches are extremely subpar and his wrestling is basically dogshit. Storyline is ok I guess.
What a mark.