Longest WWE Heavyweight Title Reigns

I find one of the most fascinating aspects of the old territory system to be the NWA champion. As all the different companies and territories had their own set-up, there was still only ever one champion. The NWA (a committee of wrestling promoters) would vote on who should be the champion, and travel from territory to territory defending the belt.

In 1963 the reigning NWA champion was Buddy Rodgers. Rodgers was under contract with Joseph "Toots" Mondt and his business partner Vincent J McMahon who owned the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC). Mondt and McMahon grew more and more reluctant to allow Rodgers to wrestle in other territories, and when the NWA made Rodgers drop the belt, the CWC left the NWA in protest.

In April that year, the CWC renamed themselves the WWWF and after a kayfabe tournament in Rio De Janeiro, Buddy Rodgers was announced as the first ever champion. Forty six years down the line, and Randy Orton is the current champion. Here is the list of the top ten longest running title reigns of the belt:

10. Superstar Billy Graham - 296 Days

On the 30th of April 1977, Billy Graham defeated Bruno Sammartino in Baltimore, Maryland to become the sixth WWF champion. At the time, heels were booked to be a transition from one face champion to the next, but Graham broke the mould and has the longest reign ever as a heel. As champion, he sold out Maddison Square Garden 19 out of the 20 times that they were there. Wrestlers would come alone who sold out the garden a lot more times, but never with the percentage of success as Graham. His most memorable match during the title reign was a blood-filled unification bout with the NWA champion Harley Race which ended in a 60 minute time limit draw. Graham dropped the belt to Bob Backland in February the next year and went on to compete in the worlds strongest man competition.

9. Diesel - 358 Days

Kevin Nash holds the record for winning the fastest ever WWF title match in an eight second squash in house show against Bob Backlund on the 26th of November 1994. For me, his title reign was a  real down point in the WWF's history. Not all of the blame can be attributed to Nash, but he was the champion in what was probably the worst year of ratings, product quality, and fan interest. In his defence, he was ranked number one in the PWI 500 best singles wrestlers of the year, but in my opinion, he never should have been in this top ten list. He dropped the title in a good Survivor Series no DQ match to Bret Hart.

8. Hulk Hogan - 364 Days

Hulk Hogan beat Randy Savage at Wrestlemania 5 which was the blow-off match for a very underrated and intense feud. During. This was Hogans second run as the champion, during which he filmed the awful film "No Holds Barred".Most of the run he was feuding with Zeus in a failed attempt to get both the film and Zeus over. The reign as champion lasted until the following Wrestlemania when he dropped the belt to The Ultimate Warrior in his first clean finish in over seven years.

7. Randy "Macho Man" Savage - 371 Days

Wrestlemania 4 had a lot to live up to. The year before the WWF held one of the most successful events of all time. In contrast to the massive crowd of Wrestlemania 3, the forth Wrestlemania was to be held infront of just over 18,000 people in the Trump Plaza. Many of the tickets were given to Trump and his associates, which would explain the rows of uninterested middle-aged men in suits on camera. Wrestlemania 4 had a 14 man tournament for the vacant WWF title which included Andre the Giant vs Hulk Hogan as the main event. As the world expected the winner to go on to win the title, Vince McMahon surprised everyone by booking the match to a double disqualification. Suddenly, we knew there would be a new champion that we hadn't seen before. Ted DiBiase has claimed in various shoot interviews that he was originally booked to win the belt, but lost to Randy Savage in the final, with a little help / camera time from The Hulkster. During the Macho Mans reign as the champion, he would turn heel and eventually drop the belt to Hogan at Mania 5.

6. John Cena - 385 Days

Love him or hate him, by the time John Cenas most recent and longest of his three title runs came about, we all had an opinion on him. After defeating Edge in a TLC match in Toronto at Unforgiven 2006, Cena went on to have surprisingly good fueds and matches with Umaga, Shawn Michales, Randy Orton and even the Great Khali! What made this title reign pretty special is that it was the longest title reign in over 19 years, and eventually got stripped of the belt after getting injured. In the age of the monthly Pay Per Views and almost daily TV programming, coupled with the short attention span of modern fans, and the faster paced storylines, I can't see anyone beating John Cenas 385 days in a long long time.

5. Pedro Morales - 1027 Days

Pedro Morales became the forth World Champion when he defeated Ivan Koloff on February 8th 1971. His near 3 year reign as the champ proved very popular with the increasing Puerto Rican community of New York. His technical style of wrestling gave fans some great matches, including long feuds with Larry Henning, Freddie Blassie and a 75 minuete time limit draw with Bruno Sammartino. Their match at the Shea Stadium was the first WWWF title match with two faces. Although Morales was de-pushed and left the WWWF after dropping the belt to Stan Stasiak, he returned to become the first man to hold all of the belts at the time (The WWWF Title, The Tag Team Title, and The Intercontinental Title). He was also part of the Spanish commentary team and inducted into the hall of fame.

4. Bruno Sammartino - 1237 Days

Nine days after Morales dropped the belt to Stasiak, Bruno Sammartino started his second reign as WWWF champion which lasted three years, four months, and twenty days. His second title reign was only supposed to last a year but each year Bruno received bigger payoffs, so despite his very serious injuries that he was suffering from, he continued to wrestle as the champion. His most famous match during his second run as champion came on the undercard of the Ali vs. Antonio Inoki match at the Shea Stadium which won the 1976 Match of the Year.

3. Hulk Hogan - 1474 Days

Vince McMahon Jr purchased the WWWF from his father with the intention to take it "mainstream". His vision was to use New York as it's home but to be the first promotion to expand nationwide. He needed a face of the company and had Hulk Hogan in mind as the man to do it. Hogan wrestled as a heel for the company but parted ways due to the filming scedule of the Rocky movie. Vince brought him back, turned him face with a little help from Bob Backland, and booked him against The Iron Sheik. Hogan won the belt after being the first man to escape from the camel clutch. In the four years and 13 daysthat Hogan Held the title, Hulkamania was born, Wrestlemania was born, Andre The Giant got pinned, and most importantly Vince achieved what he set out to do. The territory system was pretty much destroyed and the WWF became the most dominant wrestling group of all time.

2. Bob Backlund - 2135 Days

In true slow-build style, Backlund chased Billy Grahams belt through the whole of 1977. He lost with Grahams rule breaking, then started to get count out wins, then finally on February 20th 1978, Backlund pinned Graham to start the second longest title run of all time. Backlund defended his title against a truly incredible list of legendary wrestlers. Backlund would face champions from other territories and although these matches often ended in politically correct double count outs and double disqualifications, I implore you all to find and enjoy as many as possible. Modern day fans might simply remember Backlund as the crazy old guy that was a bit of a mockery in his short stints throughout the 1990's but for my money, he was one of the greatest champions of all time.

1. Bruno Sammartino - 2803 Days

On May the 17th 1963, Bruno Sammartino beat Buddy Rodgers in just 48 seconds to win his first WWF title. He held the belt for seven years, eight months, and one day. To put things into perspective, this is the same length of time as someone winning the title at No Mercy (October 2001) and still holding it to this day! This is the longest that any man has held any major pro wrestling title. Bruno was so over, that the NWA bored selected him to be the NWA champion while he was still the WWF champion. Bruno declined due to the impossible work schedule that this would bring onto him. Finally, on January 18 1971, Sammartino lost the championship at Madison Square Garden to Ivan Koloff. The crowd was so stunned into silence that Sammartino thought his hearing had been damaged. After the pin, Koloff slowly walked across the ring while the ref raised his hand three times. The announcer came into the ring with the belt but did not present it to Koloff. Koloff left the ring while Sammartino stayed inside to keep the crowd's attention off Koloff. As Sammartino left the ring, people started crying. Sammartino has said that the crowd's reaction disturbed him while he sat in the dressing room after the match.

As expected, this list has some discrepancies depending on who summed it all up. Some say that Bob Backlund didn't hold the belt for as long as it states above because of an incorrect ring announcers call. The WWF didn't recognise this as a title change, or hiatus, so I didn't either. He did however, lose the title in Japan, but again the WWF didn't recognise this. I sense that there was some kind of shoot screwjob involved.

Another thing to bear in mind is that numbers 7 and 8 were title runs that lasted from Wrestlemania to the following years Wrestlemania. Randy Savage snuck in at number 7 because there were more days between the Wrestlemania 4 and 5 than there were between 5 and 6.

A few more interesting stats for those still paying attention. The average title reign has been 187 days (a little over 6 months) and in total there have been 90 title changes. Only 9 have been over one year.

Probably the most telling statistic to show how things have changed since the days of Sammartino and Backlund is this: the last five title reigns have lasted an average of under forty days.