Flair or Cena whose 16 reigns are more impressive?
Sunday night at the Royal Rumble, John Cena made pro wrestling history by becoming the second man to reach 16 World Championships.
The accomplishment of winning sixteen major world championships is considered the record for professional wrestling (though purists and historians will tell you that Ric Flair has 21 world title reigns, several of which are not recognised by the NWA or WWE) and before Sunday the only man to reach that number was the inimitable “Nature Boy” Ric Flair.
But now that the Leader of the Cenation has joined Flair in the rarified air atop the mountain of wrestling’s all-time greats the debate begs to be made, which man’s reigns meant more? Whose was most impressive? Why?
Numbers
There are several ways to determine this. First and foremost, the numbers. Though the two men have 16 World Championships if you were to look at the total number of days as Champion for each competitor, you would see that it’s no contest in that regard.
With a staggering 3,739 days as Champion, Naitch has nearly triple the days as Cena who clocks in with 1,397 and counting. Cena would need to be Champion for the next 2,342 days, or 6 years, 4 months and change to catch up. It’s safe to assume Cena won’t be catching up.
It may even be safe to say that Flair’s number will never be touched (note: Lou Thesz is the longest reigning world champion of all-time beating Flair by 10 days). Both men have had similar schedules as well, in terms of defending the title nightly and across the world. Flair did it for much longer. Chalk one up for the Nature Boy.