WALTER Prefers Championships To Be Defended “Three Or Four Times A Year”
The current and longest-reigning NXT UK Champion in history WALTER has smashed his way through the belief that a champion should make regular defences.
At time of writing, WALTER currently sits at 693 days of his epic reign and during that time has only made seven television defences of his prestigious gold despite that number rising dramatically with multiple live event championship bouts fans never got to see.
Possessing the belief that a champion should defend his gold sparsely rather than on a regular basis in order to preserve the distinction of the strap, ‘The Austrian Anomaly’ joined SportBIBLE in order to discuss his belief and why a champion should preserve his reign for big matches rather than weekly outings:
These days championship matches lose a little bit of value because they happen so often. I like when championships are defended, I don’t know, three or four times a year. It’s the main title with a big buildup. That’s the big happening. That’s what keeps it special. There hasn’t been 15 or 20 title matches in that in that time span. So then that helped make each and every match I had stand out. When I won the title against Pete (Dunne), then defending against Tyler (Bate) in Cardiff. Then the one with Ilja Dragunov, which has been the most recent one. I think all those matches stood out for themselves. Each for their own. It’s been a different story and a different experience for the fans every time. Especially the one with Ilja, that was something new that nobody has ever seen before.”
Since defeating Pete Dunne to end the 685 day reign of ‘The Bruiserweight’ on April 5, 2019, at NXT TakeOver: New York, the goliath has been the lynchpin of the NXT UK brand unable to be usurped by challengers Dunne, Tyler Bate, Travis Banks, Joe Coffey, Dave Mastiff, A-Kid and Ilja Dragunov who he contested one of the greatest matches in NXT UK history with on October 29, 2020.
Credit for the interview: SportBIBLE
h/t for the transcription: Fightful