Because duration sounds more like a technicality and less like a statistic indicating superiority?
Corey Graves mentioned this during RAW and I too wondered this long ago. Isn't the duration of reign/combined reigns superior to their number, as the latter indicates inability to remain dominant.
Kevin Nash too mentioned this in a promo with CM Punk where he brought up Punk's title defenses and then condescendingly addressed their frequency.
Or perhaps Vince prefers his own jargon even if they don't sound as remarkable.
The "number of times as champion" number is a much easier one for them to manipulate and spread false narratives so that is the one they like to push. It makes no logical sense for a wrestler to brag about winning a belt 9 times when they are basically saying that they couldn't hold on to it 8 times, but this is WWE so...
Thats why I wished when Charlotte was out there giving that promo about wanting to break her dad's record of being a 16 time champ, Becky (or someone) say
"That means you want to lose the title 16 times you dope"
its like cena and his title reigns, they don't mention that he got at least two of those as a result of wwe doing "hot potato" with the title. An example being edge pinning him at new years revolution only for cena to reclaim the title about two or three weeks later. Thats two title reigns as a result of dropping it for all of two weeks.
another example being austin losing the title to kane just to reclaim it the next night.
Idk who started this trend but I'm sure HHH being the first 10 time world champion in WWE and calling himself "King of Kings" is more to blame than WWE making this seem important for Charlotte.
WWE's been doing this and hyping how many times someone's been champion for as long as i can remember.
When folk rarely hold the title for over 6 months at one time it makes sense to not bring attention to length. It's similar to how in MMA they never really mention how long a former champ had the belt unless they have a record (or close to) for defenses in the division .
They are just trying to copy other sports where you don't really "lose" the championship/ title. Say in Football, Tennis, or Skiing or whatever. You are a 5 time world champion/ title holder because you won the championship/ title five times. You never "lost" it; you were simply unable to retain it.
They also probably got bored of tallying up the days as champion which they kind of rinsed to death with Punk.
I don't get why they make a big deal about it either..
It's not a good statistic in rasslin because 10 times champ means the person managed to lose/relinquish it at least 9 times.
It's never made sense, never will make any, and overthinking stuff like this only leads to disappointment. And probably padded rooms and strong meds.
The number of times you've won the title is the easiest statistic to keep track of, and since most wrestling fans are simple creatures, that's the one that always gets mentioned.
Of course the number of days you've been champion or the number of times you've successfully defended it are more impressive, though. You never hear this kind of stuff in boxing or MMA, you only hear how long someone's been champ or (usually) how many times they defended it.
Number of defenses is almost never mentioned because most of them defend it 50 times in house shows. They don't want to draw attention to the fact that the results in house shows are a foregone conclusion.
Number of reigns is treated as an important statistic because it's super easy for the company to inflate if they want to push someone. At No Mercy 2007 Randy Orton went from a 0 time WWE Champion to a 2 time WWE Champion. Triple H started and finished a sixth reign the same night. They're inflated numbers you can use for the next 20 years, nobody will remember the circumstances.
Stats like 16, 14 or 13 world titles for guys like Cena, HHH and Orton sound cool, but that also means you lost the title a shitload of times and/or played hot potato with it like a prop.
I'd rather be someone like Bret Hart, who "only" had 5 WWF Title runs to his name, but most of those runs were substantial and lengthy. Or Austin's record.
Quality over quantity.
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