Top 5 WWE Championship Reigns and Defenses

[LionDen]

People have been asking how many times did the top five (added 6 since Bruno in top 5 twice) WWE championship title reign holders defended their title during their reigns (counting House Shows and Live Events.) These numbers are not official but are close to the number of the times from my research. Please share in comments if you know the true amounts or dates.

-- Bruno Sammartino 2803 days (350 to 400 or so defenses)
May 17, 1963, to Jan 18, 1971




-- Bob Backlund 2,135 days (550 - 580 or so defenses)
Feb 20, 1978, to Dec 26, 1983

-- Hulk Hogan 1,474 days (460 or so defenses)
April 2, 1984, to Feb 5, 1988

-- Roman Reigns 1316 days (31 defenses)(Not including House Shows, if he did)
Aug 30, 2020 - Apr 7, 2024

-- Bruno Sammartino 1,237 days (135 or so defenses)
Dec 10, 73 - Apr 30, 77


Since Bruno Sammartino went twice, a special mention to the 6th longest reigning champion Pedro Morales.

-- Pedro Marales 1027 days (155 or so defenses)
Feb 8, 71 - Dec 1, 73





I found this interesting by someone on Reddit posted 4 years ago:

Number of successful title defenses

[mrluck_07]

So impressive when you think about the drawing power that Sammartino, Morales and Backlund had to have reigns that long considering they didn't have even the benefit of PPVs. Just straight houses.

[LionDen]

Very interesting!

Yeah, someone mentioned it on our UOW FB, so I thought I would look into it. Hard to exact numbers.

[LionDen]

So impressive when you think about the drawing power that Sammartino, Morales and Backlund had to have reigns that long considering they didn't have even the benefit of PPVs. Just straight houses.

Yeah, Shootkick (staff here) told me that Backlund was a kind of bouncer for McMahon Sr in the ring.

[LionDen]

Got a reply on our UOW FB that I found interesting, I will post all 3 replies so far.

Universe of Wrestling:
Just wanted to post this one more time so people can get a idea: I do not believe or remember Reigns defending the title at House Shows. We all must remember he held the title during the COVID pandemic where there were no House Shows or people at Live events etc for a long time. If we had not had the pandemic, it is possible Reigns would not have held the title that long. In saying that, we must remember Triple H did make a point of saying that he wanted champions to hold titles longer just before the pandemic began, so to make the championships have more meaning. Look at Gunther with the Intercontinental championship for example. Now we have Rhea Ripley holding the Women's championship for 1+ plus years. Hate Reigns or like him, he is now part of history. As always in wrestling, it can not please everyone.

** Top 5 WWE championship reigns and defenses **
People have been asking how many times did the top five (added 6 since Bruno in top 5 twice) WWE championship title reign holders defended their title during their reigns (counting House Shows and Live Events.) These numbers are not official but are close to the number of the times from my research. Please share in comments if you know the true amounts or dates.

-- Bruno Sammartino 2803 days (350 to 400 or so defenses)
May 17, 1963, to Jan 18, 1971
-- Bob Backlund 2,135 days (550 - 580 or so defenses)
Feb 20, 1978, to Dec 26, 1983
-- Hulk Hogan 1,474 days (460 or so defenses)
April 2, 1984, to Feb 5, 1988
-- Roman Reigns 1316 days (31 defenses)(Not including House Shows. if he did any but if so, this number could be larger)
Aug 30, 2020 - Apr 7, 2024
-- Bruno Sammartino 1,237 days (135 or so defenses)
Dec 10, 73 - Apr 30, 77

Since Bruno Sammartino went twice, a special mention to the 6th longest reigning champion
Pedro Morales.

-- Pedro Marales 1027 days (155 or so defenses)

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Carl Penney
Universe of Wrestling I actually looked it up to, but the only thing I found numbers for the first 1,171 days of the top 4 longest reigns.
Sammartino- 358
Backlund - 444
Hogan- 352
Reigns - 54
Im not sure about Sammartino's or Hogan's, but Backlund's and Reign's numbers were the exact numbers.

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Universe of Wrestling
Carl Penney, thank you. Not easy looking those up as there are different numbers everywhere unless you go through every match of each wrestler and even then I am not sure that is completely possible. With your 1,171 days numbers, the ones I posted could still be around the ballpark total. So it seems Reigns did do some house show defenses. Thank you for the effort.

The below photo is a list I found on Reddit posted about 4 years ago with the number of title defenses for different people you may find interesting to look at. I did not use these figures, this was just part of my research effort. They were like us and did research to .. never easy. The list was wider with more figures but that is all I screen capped. Take it for what it is.