Following his win over Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 39, Roman Reigns is closing in on 1000 days as World Champion.
The Head of the Table will hit the milestone on May 27th at WWE Night of Champions, but not everyone is happy about it. A number of fans have suggested that Rhodes should have won at WrestleMania and that Reigns’ run has become boring.
However, it has been reported that Reigns’ record-breaking run is far from a coincidence. Speaking on the Mat Men Podcast, Andrew Zarian explained that WWE has made a concerted effort in recent years to modernise the history books. This led to World Title wins for Goldberg and Brock Lesnar.
“Over the last couple of years, it probably started with the Universal Title, WWE realised that when you look at the history books the greatest champions, like the measurement of like ‘this guy held the title for this many days,’ ‘Honky Tonk Man had the title for this long…’ The modern era does not have any of those records. Titles change, plans change, injuries are different, they work harder.
So, they made a point a couple of years ago to start changing this and modernising it. One example was with manipulating the history books was when Bill Goldberg won that title. The Universal Title. There’s a reason why Brock Lesnar had it and Bill Goldberg had it. They wanted to add the older prestige to this new title. So you’re creating a legacy.
Same as why Chris Jericho had the AEW Title. Was it that Chris Jericho is the biggest draw in the company? Yeah he was one of them. But I don’t think that it would have really made a difference if Kenny [Omega] held the title from the go. You gotta bump the stats. So having Chris Jericho as your first champion, or having a Bill Goldberg as your champion matters.
Zarian added that a number of WWE’s recent title reigns have been designed to make the company’s records more relatable to younger fans.
“Now, on the other side we’re seeing that Charlotte [Flair] is going to be a record holder. Bianca [Belair] has held that title for a while. Roman is coming up to 1000. There was a new record for the Tag Titles. Gunther is breaking a record for the Intercontinental Title. This is a way to modernise the history books so you’re no longer looking at names — and I’m not knocking this — you’re not looking at Pedro Morales every time you look at that list. You’re going to see somebody else, because the reality is that Bruno Sammartino is Bruno, and Hulk Hogan is Hulk Hogan, and that’s fine, and there’s nothing you could do to erase that.
But, when you’re looking at the history books, these kids are not gonna know who Bruno is, and who Pedro is, and Buddy Rodgers. This doesn’t matter to them, they want to see names that they recognise.”
Steve Austin Claims It Wasn’t The Right Time For Roman Reigns To Lose
While Roman Reigns’ victory over Cody Rhodes proved controversial among fans, Steve Austin has backed the decision. The WWE legend stated in a recent interview that Rhodes deserves to be World Champion, and will be in the future, but now wasn’t the time to end Reigns’ dominant run.
If you use any of the quotes from this article please credit the original source with a h/t to Inside The Ropes.