Gutteridge’s WWE Statistics Series 2019: Title Reigns (Part 7 of 7)

By Darren Gutteridge, Dot Net Contributor (originally published on FoulEntertainment.com)

Welcome to the 2019 WWE Statistics Series! Over the past 12 months, I’ve compiled stats on every single show WWE produced. I did this last year, and basically carried it on this year because I had lots of ideas about how to make it better. I think I’ve made a lot of improvements, so hopefully these stats will be even more insightful than last year!

So far, we’ve looked at Wins and Losses, Overall Records, Non-Contract Performers, Vs. Records, and both part one and part two of our breakdown of the months of the year. Today, we bring things to a close with a look at titles.

I’ll explain some of the nuances of the stats as we go (you can explore the entire spreadsheet on Google Docs), but I’d first like to thank Cagematch.net for their exhaustive record keeping that helped me start, maintain and double check this mammoth undertaking. Also everyone on ProWrestling.Net for the easy to skim TV reports, which I used in place of watching the shows when my free time was short.

And now, the breakdown.

The following stats are, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. They were taken from every televised WWE show between episode 1011 of Smackdown on January 1st and episode 1388 of Raw on December 30th. Matches were only counted if they aired on TV or the WWE network, and only if they aired during 2019 (this discounts any events taped in 2019 that won’t air until 2020). Also, any wins or losses that occurred whilst a wrestler wasn’t under WWE contract were not counted. They had to appear on the roster pages of either the WWE website or Wikipedia (or both) to be counted.

Reigns

In total, 96 members of the roster held titles in 2019, up massively from 58 last year. This means that more than a third of the roster (40% to be exact) won gold this year. If you’ve been following these articles, you’ll know why – the dreaded 24/7 Title. Such is its impact, I have made the decision to remove it from all other stats stated below, giving it its own section. Otherwise, it would win most of the awards.

Below, you’ll see a breakdown of reigns by length of days. I’d like to clarify two things. Firstly, we’re only counting days within the calendar year of 2019. Title reigns like Ronda Rousey’s and Shayna Baszler’s were longer as they started in 2018 (and Pete Dunne’s started in 2017!), but we’re omitting any days before January 1st 2019. Also, we’re going by taping date, not airing date, for titles that changed hands on pre-taped shows. So Johnny Gargano had a longer reign with the NXT North American Title on TV than they did in real life.

Defences

Averages

Title defences vs. length of reign averages

This shows how often on average during each reign the title was defended. So if a title was defended twice in 100 days, that works out on average as a defence every 50 days.

Overall, the average title length was 77 days. Briefly including the 24/7 title, Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson holds the distinction of the most reigns with different belts, holding the green belt during a year that also saw them have two runs with the Raw Tag Team Titles and one run with the Smackdown Tag Team Titles. In total, 19 members of the roster won two titles over the course of the year, with Erik, Ivar and Ricochet holding titles on both NXT and the main roster.

As he did last year, Seth Rollins racked up the most title challenges with 8 (2 for the Universal Title, 1 for the WWE Title, 1 for the Raw Tag Team Titles, 1 for the US Title, 2 for the IC Title, and even 1 for the NXT Title). Aleister Black has the unwanted accolade of the most title challenges without winning a championship with 5 (1 for the NXT Title, 2 for the Raw Tag Team Titles, 1 for the Smackdown Tag Team Titles, and 1 for the NXT Tag Team Titles). 51% of the roster got at least one title match, but spare a thought for Drew McIntyre, as the Scottish Psychopath wrestled the most matches (49, the 6th highest total amount of matches on the roster) without having a single title opportunity.

Four titles endured vacant periods this year (the exact same amount as 2018) – the United States Title, the Smackdown Tag Team Titles, the NXT Title and the NXT Tag Team Titles. The shortest was the Smackdown Tag Team Titles at 8 days, between The Hardy Boyz relinquishing them and Daniel Bryan and Rowan winning them, and the longest was the NXT Tag Team Titles at 32 days, between the Viking Raiders relinquishing them and The Street Profits winning them.

24/7 Title

We end this set of articles on the tricky thorn in my side. For the record, I actually quite like what the 24/7 brings to the table (when used properly), but from the off it caused havoc with the title stats. But it this way – there were more 24/7 title reigns (83) than there were for every other title combined (79)!

Nevertheless, here are the exploits of the new hot potato belt, starting with the most title reigns.

His 30 reigns with the belt mean that R-Truth has now overtaken Raven (27 times a Hardcore Champion) with the most amount of reigns with a single belt. R-Truth and Samir Singh both share the longest reign accolade, both holding the title for 18 days in their 24th and 1st reigns respectively. There are far too many less than a day reigns to calculate the shortest reign. And Samir Singh also has the rare distinction of multiple 24/7 title defences (these were only counted when the title was defended in an actual match), topping the list with 3 defences during his 1st reign.

Thanks for reading! This concludes this year’s series of WWE stats. If you enjoyed this series, let me know, and if it has enough support I’ll do the same for 2020. The comprehensive set of spreadsheets are there to explore for yourself. You can also follow me on Twitter – @TheGutteridge

Network Specials include: Network Specials include: All Kickoff shows, All NXT/NXT UK Takeovers, All World’s Collide specials, All YouTube 24/7 Title changes, Halftime Heat, The Shield’s Final Chapter, Evolve 10th Anniversary, Smackville and Starrcade.

PPVs include: Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, Fastlane, WrestleMania 35, Money in the Bank, Super Showdown, Stomping Grounds, Extreme Rules, SummerSlam, Clash of Champions, Hell in a Cell, Crown Jewel, Survivor Series and TLC.