"Record 17-time World Champion John Cena"?? THAT'S NOT FAIR TO FLAIR

[air_raid]

Please note - any reverence you may infer from these words are strictly for Ric Flair as a character and professional wrestling "champion" and not the piece of shit human being we all know him to be in real life.

Let's get something straight right now - 17 times does not make John Cena the record holder. Let's not pretend it does ; that would not be fair to Flair. We've known forever that "16" is only the most famous number associated with Slick Ric, and out of his own mouth his own estimate (and it's only an estimate, he admits) has varied between 21 and 25, accounting for NWA title losses and recapturings that either have been forgotten and/or were never officially recognised or even seen outside the people in attendance. Let's do a deep dive and see if we can unravel - officially, is Ric Flair an 18-time World Champion (as the most visible numbers for the Big 2 would suggest), a 19-time World Champion (as I've long insisted) or is the real number... something else?

OK raid - why is the 16 times that WWE mention worth questioning?

In simplest terms - the WWF always assumed that as WCW were counting Flair's title reigns up from 9 when he returned to Atlanta up to 16 when WCW folded, that the number included his 2 WWF title reigns. As we'll establish - they didn't. When Flair returned to the WWF in 2001, as a bare minimum, if the WWF/WWE wanted to acknowledge Flair's legacy, they should have clocked that "16 times" doesn't include their own, so (to much amusement on my part) they continue to accidentally ignore their own championship when they use "16 times" ever since. 18 times is the absolute lowest we can get to in regards to only the officially recognised reigns. There is some retroactive fluff out there (on Wiki at the least) that there are 2 reigns that WCW recognised that WWE don't, and that's how they kept "16" the same without adding the WWF reigns to the number he brought with him in 2001 - kind of the opposite of what WCW did in 1993, we'll get to that - but it's total, complete and utter bollocks. They just can't count.

Fair enough. But raid, why isn't it just 18?

Because what the official numbers are, are a subject of debate. The WWF number is 2, which nobody could or does dispute, and WCW officially listed Ric as a 7-time holder of the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at close. However there are further questions which muddy the waters - (a) how many times, officially, did Flair hold the NWA World Heavyweight Championship? Within that - what did WCW recognise that the Alliance themselves may not have/may not? (b) when is a reign not a reign? If that one sounds odd, we'll get to that. If we look for the "unofficial" numbers, I'm going to further ask (a) are there any occasions that Flair won the title in the ring that we know about but but aren't recognised? (b) what about phantom switches?

How many times, officially - to the best of our knowledge - has Ric Flair been recognised as NWA World Heavyweight Champion?

(1) 17/09/81 beating Dusty Rhodes, to 10/06/83 losing to Harley Race.
(2) 24/11/83 beating Race, to 20/03/84 losing to Race in Wellington, New Zealand (initially not recognised by the NWA - we'll get on to those in a bit).
(3) 23/03/84 beating Race in Kallang, Singapore (initially not recognised by the NWA - as above), to 06/05/84 losing to Kerry Von Erich.
(4) 24/04/84 beating Von Erich, to 26/07/86 losing to Dusty.
(5) 09/08/86 beating Dusty, to 25/09/87 losing to Ron Garvin.
(6) 26/11/87 beating Garvin, to 20/02/89 losing to Ricky Steamboat.
(7) 07/05/89 beating Steamboat, to 07/07/90 losing to Sting. (Fond memories of the PPV tapes I had from this reign where GMC would boom “for the SIXTH TIME he is THE! WORLD! HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION!!” .. but it was actually already 7)
(8) 11/01/91 beating Sting, to 21/03/91 losing to Tatsumi Fujinami at the Tokyo Dome (a switch acknowledged as official by the NWA but not by WCW because of infractions of the "over the top rope" rule during the match)
(9) 19/05/91 beating Fujinami at SuperBrawl, to eventually being stripped long after leaving WCW, for the infraction of taking the NWA belt onto WWF telly.
(10) 18/07/93 beating Barry Windham, to being stripped after WCW's withdrawal from the Alliance and thereafter being announced as defending the title against Rick Rude at Fall Brawl in a match the NWA had not sanctioned - furious that WCW had filmed TV showing Rude wearing their belt despite not yet OK'ing the switch.

So... when Flair returned to WCW from the WWF having won the WWF title twice, he was positioned as going to challenge Barry for the NWA title. As far as WCW were concerned, he was currently a 7 time "World Heavyweight Champion" going for #8 given that they only recognised 7 of then (then) official 8 reigns which the NWA did, and they considered his first run as WCW World Champion (starting with beating Sting and ending when left) as, actually, one reign along with his 7th (and 8th) NWA title reign. Two titles, one reign. I can kind of see their logic in that he only won the World title in the ring once and the separate title lineages were retrospectively created when he left WCW, but mathematically it's iffy when you list how many times he won each separate title.

HOWEVER... WCW were rather keen to recognise Flair upon his victory over Baz as a "10 time World Heavyweight Champion" but in a manner that completely disregarded his two reigns up North. So, they retrospectively started to recognise two reigns - the defeat of Fujinami to win back the title in 1991 (which the Alliance themselves had always included) AND those changes in Wellington and Kallang - even though the NWA themselves, at the time, didn't. Both of those throw up a question mark - the Fujinami one, in a rare moment of logic for WCW - was retconned to be an official swap of the NWA title because the Alliance always did at the time, but they didn't recognise Flair as having lost THEIR title and regained it because - well, they didn't at the time, so why should they? Makes sense. Wellington and Kallang is a different story completely. WCW found out about that switch and started recognizing it in 1993 but the Alliance didn't recognise it at the time, so when WCW were referring to Flair as a "10 time World Heavyweight Champion" (disregarding the first reign with their own title in 91 as a concurrent reign to the NWA ) the NWA themselves officially only had it as 9. However, according to Wiki the reign has “been occasionally recognized by the NWA since 2015” but their lineage on Wiki only makes 9 and that's the one they omit, and every available resource for official NWA histories show the number as 9. So... does it depend what day it is?

And what about all the unofficial jazz?

These are only the ones I know about, from Wiki.
09/02/82 he lost the title to The Midnight Rider in Miami - Dusty handed the title back when he refused to unmask because NWA rules "forbade masked wrestlers holding it." Even though Dusty did win the title in the ring, his win was never recognised, so I suppose the title being returned to Flair doesn't count either.
07/09/82 he seemed to lose the title to Jack Veneno in Santo Domingo with his arm dropping the third time in a sleeper at the same time as the time limit bell sounding in an intentionally ambiguous finish made up on the fly by Flair, fearing a riot if Veneno didn't win. The Alliance never recognised it, in the Dominican Republic, Veneno was reported to have surrendered the title back to Flair due to not being willing to leave the country to defend it, Flair regaining the title never happened in the ring.
06/01/83 he lost the title to Carlos Colon in Puerto Rico but winning it back was again phantom.

… so he’s lost it at least 3 times in the ring more than won it, unofficially.

How many times, officially - to the best of our knowledge - has Ric Flair been recognised as WCW World Heavyweight Champion?

Refreshingly straight-forward, that part. Maybe.
(2) 27/12/93 beating Vader to losing it to Hulk Hogan 17/07/94 ("11")
(3) 27/12/95 beating Randy Savage to losing it back to Savage 22/01/96 ("12")
(4) 11/02/96 beating Savage in a cage match to 22/04/96 losing it to The Giant ("13")
(5) 14/03/99 beating Hogan to 11/04/99 losing it to Dallas Page in a four-way ("14")
(6) 15/05/00 beating Jeff Jarrett (who had held in 8 days) until being stripped by Vince Russo 22/05/00 ("15")
(7) 29/05/00 the title surrendered to him by Kevin Nash since he hadn't lost it, to losing to Jarrett in the ring that same night ("16")
… the title changing hands 9 times between 16th April with Jarrett's first win and 29th May with his third.

At the close of WCW, they considered Flair a 7-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion (we all agree) and a 10-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion (the Alliance unsure if they agree to this day) but consider the first WCW reign to not stand alone as a "reign" as it started concurrent to being the NWA champ - so 16 reigns overall. It's wishy-washy, isn't it? Nobody considers Triple H's first WHC reign of 2002 as not being a reign just because he was "recognised" rather than it starting in the ring so it's a bit odd that WCW wouldn't. Otherwise it's simple maths of 10+7 = 17. 

So - what do WWE not recognize from the other 16 on top of their own? Aside from 9th NWA/1st WCW being "the same reign"?

The Kallang/Wellington switches which the Alliance flip/flop about, and losing/regaining the title from Fujinami despite it being official in respects to the NWA and WWE not really having any right to say otherwise. On top of, despite saying "became officially recognized as WCW Championship" with his 91 win over Sting in their listings - only counting the six wins thereafter. 8 time NWA champ, 6 time WCW champ, 2 time WWF champ = 16. Despite WCW officially calling it 7 and the Alliance calling it (at least) 9. ROFLCOPTOR.

At this point you can make some arguments - Flair is a 19-time World champ if you recognize his first WCW title reign as a reign independent to reigning with the NWA title and you also recognise his win in Singapore as NWA canon, an 18-time World champ if you reject one or the other, or a 17-time World champion if you reject both. Personally.... I'd call it 19. The Wellington/Kallang changes for me, if the NWA them recognized them at one point, it's nonsense to go back on that. It's not Pluto, you don't just reclassify if you recognise something or not, surely?

But.... are there more that we could argue?

Why yes, there are. Wikipedia makes it to 8 WCW title reigns despite WCW officially calling it 7 runs with their title and making it to "16" overall on TV with everything that happened from Beach Blast 93 onwards - for a specific reason. At Spring Stampede 94 Flair wrestled Ricky Steamboat to a double pin and in the weeks thereafter Nick Bockwinkel as the on-screen Commissioner (yes, WCW used that term first) declared the title vacant pending a rematch, taped 21/04/94 and won by Flair. Why the fuck that win didn't officially make Flair ALREADY a "12-time" World Heavyweight Champion before he eventually would win his next from Macho Man, I don't know, dear reader. This wasn't "title held up" pending the rematch, they clearly used the word "vacant." So while nobody else officially seems to recognize Flair regaining the title rather than just a continuation of the same reign... well, they should, shouldn't they??? That WCW can't count shouldn't negate that we as intelligent observers can see that, CLEARLY, WCW officially recognised Flair as their World Heavyweight Champion, actually, 8 times. So.… yes, I'm going to call it 20 here and WCWLOL. 

And finally... well, when WCW kept the physical Big Gold Belt after withdrawing from the Alliance they eventually referred to it as the "World Heavyweight Championship" of the fictional "WCW International" running concurrent to Vader's "WCW Heavyweight Championship." I won't entertain the idea that Flair beating Sting to unify the belts makes it another reign and that Flair rather than Sting is the last "WCW International World Heavyweight Champion" - after all nobody counts HHH beating Kane in 2002 as him winning the Intercontinental title again* - however, WCW withdrew from the NWA (after a falling out about WCW making plans for their title without their consent) on 1st September 1993, the Alliance considers their title held up as of 15th September... yet Ric Flair very clearly walked into Fall Brawl on 19th wearing the belt and recognized as A "World Heavyweight Champion" until he was defeated by Ravishing. So, I am forced to consider the Nature Boy the first holder of the World Heavyweight Championship of WCW International, and lineage that ran through Rude and The Stinger before it was unified.

AND IN CONCLUSION....

Whoooo!!

* Except I reckon Hunter probably does.

[theringmaster]

Absolutely brilliant and I really can't argue against anything here. The fact that WWE just carried on the 16 times moniker without checking is both the funniest and infuriating thing ever.

On a side note to 'Flair and title reins', all of the above confusion shouldn't be a surprise when in the last few years they have flipped flopped around on how many times champion Charlotte is. There was an episode of RAW where it suddenly jumped up because they began recognising NXT championships, then a few months (and a lost rating war with AEW) later it dropped back down. I think they did something simililar with McIntrye and Finn Balor around this time.

Off topic/side note, it always annoys me how WWE totally ignore Jerry Lawler's World title reigns. 

[air_raid]

13 minutes ago, theringmaster said:

Off topic/side note, it always annoys me how WWE totally ignore Jerry Lawler's World title reigns. 

Ah, from one pervert to another. At least he has the AWA title to his name, so its not just the World Heavyweight Championship of Memphis, the way Uhaa/Apollo was World Heavyweight Champion of Preston, and Graves/SJK was World Heavyweight Champion of Doncaster.