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In response to
"How long has Asuka been champion -- and how does that compare to Hogan's being champ from 1984 to 1988?"
by
Will Hunting
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She won't pass him, Backlund, or Sammartino or Pedro Morales....breakdown inside...
Posted by
Remlik (aka remlik)
Jun 5 '17, 13:56
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I missposted sorry about that
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f you love impressive milestones and recordbreaking title reigns, Asuka's probably going to become your favorite wrestler this year. She's already the longest reigning NXT Women's Champion of all time at 430 days, but unless the cataclysm hits between now and August 17th, Asuka is on the verge of making unbelievably huge WWE history by becoming one of the longest reigning champions ever in WWE, man or woman.
Where exactly does she stand now, and what are the next milestones? Well, let's start by looking at all the WWE titles whose longest reigning champions she's already surpassed:
US Title: Dean Ambrose, 351 days
World Title (2002 version): Batista, 282 days
Universal Title: Kevin Owens, 188 days
European Title: British Bulldog, 206 days
Hardcore Title: Big Boss Man, 97 days
North American Title: Pat Patterson, 158 days (this comes with an asterisk we'll get to in a bit)
Raw Women's Title: Charlotte, 113 days
Smackdown Women's Title: Becky Lynch, 84 days
ECW World Title (WWE version): Christian, 205 days
NXT Title: Finn Balor, 292 days
NXT Tag Team Title: The Ascension, 364 days
Cruiserweight Title: Gregory Helms, 385 days
Divas Title: Nikki Bella, 301 days
Smackdown Tag Team Title: Jimmy & Jey Uso (current champions, won on 3/21/2017, so approximately 75 days-ish)
From that list, we can already see that Asuka is the longest reigning champion in NXT history, but before we get to the next set of milestones, let's cover the people she's NOT going to surpass. These four were all very long-reigning WWWF/WWF World Champions who won their titles in the early, pre-national expansion era of the company, and as nice a goal as topping this list might be, nobody's holding a WWE title for seven and a half years ever again:
-Bruno Sammartino: two WWWF World Title reigns lasting 2,803 and 1,237 days
-Hulk Hogan: first WWF World Title reign lasted 1,474 days
-Bob Backlund: one WWWF World Title reign lasting 2,135 days (or two reigns lasting 648 and 1,470 days, if you count the Inoki switch)
-Pedro Morales: one WWWF World Title reign lasting 1,027 days
Also, let's cover a few title reigns we're not going to count because...well, they weren't REALLY WWE titles when they happened:
-Seiji Sakaguchi defeated Pat Patterson for the WWF North American Title on a house show in Japan, then held it for 532 days before it was deactivated. Thing was, the WWF had already replaced the North American Title with the Intercontinental Title by that point, and hadn't used the North American Title for months by the time this title switch happened.
Since the WWF had a partnership with New Japan Pro Wrestling at the time, and had no plans to ever use the North American Title themselves again, they had Patterson drop it to Sakaguchi as a favor to New Japan. Now Sakaguchi could run around Japan claiming to be the North American Champion, despite the fact that he was carrying around a belt that was never going to be defended in North America again. It's not out of the realm of possibility for Asuka to break this one, but it doesn't really matter for the spirit of what we're doing here.
-The Fabulous Moolah has long been claimed to have a nearly 28 year long reign as the WWF Women's Champion to her credit, and that is official according to WWE's records, but there's a few HUGE asterisks here. First, she DID lose the title several times, thought she almost always regained it immediately, so no solid 18 years to be found here.
More importantly, however, Moolah owned and operated the title herself, and singlehandedly controlled its booking. She used it to make herself an attraction and defended it in many other places besides the WWWF/WWF, meaning it's really more of an external title that the WWWF/WWF would occasionally bring in than a true WWE title. The WWF bought the title from her in 1983 and backdated her title win to 1956 (conveniently ignoring her title losses in the process), but for our purposes, we're recognizing Wendi Richter's title win over Moolah on July 23, 1984 as the official beginning of WWE's version of the title.
-In that same vein, the NWA/WCW United States Title (which was unified with the Intercontinental Title at Survivor Series 2001) and the WWE United States Title (first held by Eddy Guerrero in 2003) are TWO DIFFERENT TITLES. Same thing with the WCW World Title and the WWE "World" Title that was created for Triple H in 2002. There is literally no common lineage linking them, just a name in the case of the US Title, and a belt design in the case of the World Title. Nobody who held NWA/WCW versions of those titles count, I don't care what WWE's website has to say about it.
The same holds true for the "ECW World Title" that existed following the WWE's revival of ECW in 2006. Same name, but completely new lineage beginning with Rob Van Dam, which was created by a completely different company (and ask any old school ECW fan if they disagree with that. For the record, though, Shane Douglas was the longest reigning original ECW World Champion at 405 days, which Asuka has already surpassed). I don't count anyone who held the Cruiserweight Title prior to it becoming a WWE title either, but it doesn't really matter since Helms held it far longer than anyone on either side of that fence. Obviously, no other WCW or ECW titles count if they never even appeared in WWE.
-Antonio Inoki logged over ten straight years as the WWF Martial Arts Champion...a title that the WWF created specifically for him. Another byproduct of the WWF-NJPW partnership of the late 70s and early 80s, the WWF gave Inoki this title as a favor to New Japan, and also to give him more street cred for when he would come to New York and defend it in Madison Square Garden.
The partnership between the two companies eventually dissolved, but Inoki kept defending it regardless, and he eventually racked up 3,780 straight days as the WWF Martial Arts Champion before he finally dropped it to someone I've never heard of named Shota Chochishvili. ShoChoch only held it for 31 days before Inoki took it back and kept it until New Japan finally retired the title 220 days later.
-The three longest reigning WWF Light Heavyweight Champions of all time are Villano III (yes, the guy from the weekly Nitro lucha six man tags) at 826 days, El Signo with 563 days, and Pegasus Kid (known to most as Chris Benoit) with 560 days. That all sounds great, except for the fact that the WWF fans had no idea these reigns happened because the WWF never acknowledged that they even had a Light Heavyweight Title in those days.
This was another instance of the WWF sending a belt with their name on it overseas to promote the brand. The first champion, Perro Aguayo, was crowned in Japan, and then the title spent most of the next 13 years in Mexico before our man Villano III was stripped of it when he left the UWA, which controlled the title at the time. It lay dormant for half a year before someone named Aero Flash won it a tournament and took it to Japan, where it stayed for two more years (at one point even becoming part of the J-Crown Title that occasionally appeared on Monday Nitro...ironic, no?).
The WWF finally decided they wanted to use the title for themselves in 1997, and pulled it back from their old friends in New Japan, who by that time had it around the waist of Shinjiro Otani. So, even though this title had the WWF name on it, it was not booked by the WWF, it was never held by a WWF wrestler, and it spent most of the first 16 years of its existence in countries the WWF rarely toured in. For these reasons, no Light Heavyweight Title reigns prior to Taka Michinoku in 1997 are going to be counted.
-Finally, there is the matter of the "King of the WWF" recognition which was treated as a sort of title for several years in the late 80s and early 90s. Harley Race first became the King when he won the King of the Ring tournament on a house show in 1986, but his manager Bobby Heenan gave the crown to Haku instead when Race went out with an injury. Haku lost it to Hacksaw Jim Duggan, who then lost it to the Macho Man, who held onto it until he lost the retirement match to the Ultimate Warrior at Wrestlemania 7.
Okay, so TECHNICALLY, Savage held the crown for 571 days, but in reality, it ceased to be a title when he won it and really became his gimmick instead. Savage stopped defending the crown almost immediately after winning it, so since the WWF no longer treated it as a title, neither do I, and Savage's "reign" as the King effectively ended the moment it began.
-And no, the Million Dollar Belt and Ric Flair's "Real World's Title" don't count as real titles either. Same goes for Stevie Richards as the "Sunday Night HEAT Champion" and Zack Ryder as the "Internet Champion" and any other goofball, made-up titles that only one person ever held.
Okay, now let's come back around to Asuka, who is on the verge of history with her extraordinarily long reign as the NXT Women's Champion. What are the next milestones? Glad you asked, because they're all coming up real quick in rapid-fire fashion:
-On 6/10/2017, she will surpass CM Punk, the longest reigning WWE World Champion other than the four gentlemen I mentioned earlier, at 434 days.
-On 6/24/2017, she will surpass Gillberg, the longest reigning WWF Light Heavyweight Champion in history (that we're going to count) at 448 days.
-On 6/30/2017, she will surpass the Honky Tonk Man, the longest reigning WWF Intercontinental Champion in history at 454 days.
-On 7/24/2017, she will surpass Demolition, the longest reigning team to hold the original WWF World Tag Team Title at 478 days.
-On 7/29/2017, she will surpass the New Day, the longest reigning team to hold the World/Raw Tag Team Title (the one created on Smackdown in 2002) at 483 days.
-Finally, on 8/17/2017, she will surpass Rockin' Robin, the longest reigning WWF Women's Champion of the post-Moolah era at 502 days.
NXT's next major event, NXT Takeover: Brooklyn III, takes place on 8/19/2017, two days after Asuka will top the record title reign of ALMOST EVERY OTHER CHAMPION IN WWE HISTORY. Think about that: out of the 1,113 title reigns we're counting according to our rules, Asuka is about to have the seventh longest, and that is just insane to think about. Unless something crazy comes out of left field before then, Asuka will shatter the record of all those titles whether she retains at Takeover or not. Stay tuned, folks: history is about to be made.
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