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The “Title Formula” was created to assess the championship resumes of all relevant WWE and WCW wrestlers between November 1983 and August 2015. Each division was weighted according to its importance; the World Championship received top billing, beneath it the IC and US Titles were considered as equals followed by the Tag Team Titles. Belts such as the Cruiserweight, European, and Hardcore Championships were not taken into account because they were all short-lived; the major titles have been around throughout every period of the WrestleMania Era. The formula also accounts for the length of reigns versus the number of reigns.  Follow @TheDocLOP QUESTION OF THE DAY: What’s your ideal length for a major championship reign? Do you even think it matters? 60. MVP 59. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat 58. Lance Storm 57. Barry Windham 56. Ivan and Nikita Koloff 55. Ron Simmons 54. Mr. Perfect 53. Rick Steiner 52. John Morrison 51. “Ravishing” Rick Rude \ 60. MVP If Barrett and Ziggler are destined to be regarded as two of the most underutilized main-event caliber talents of their era, then surely MVP has to be considered one of the most underutilized main-event caliber talents of his era. Under serious consideration for the Top 90 in The WrestleMania Era first edition, MVP debuted in WWE with the perfect gimmick at the perfect time. It was perhaps the height of the prima donna wide receiver in the National Football League and MVP burst onto the scene reminding many of Terrell Owens and Chad (Ochocinco) Johnson. The character just flat out worked. The man behind the persona was an extremely talented wrestler who made his mark with a dazzling mid-card run between 2007 and 2009 at a time when having a dazzling mid-card run was no easy task. He had a memorable storyline with Matt Hardy and reigned as United States Champion during that period for a modern record 419 days (343 days of which occurred in one noteworthy run that – considering how little Dean Ambrose actually did with the US title in 351 days – ought to be regarded as the greatest under the WWE banner). Unfortunately, his career never progressed. In the Brand Split Era, that was colossally disappointing. MVP was a baller. 59. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat Timing is such a fascinating element of pro wrestling success to consider, as it is with any elite athletic endeavor. In pro basketball discussions, fans and historians often ask what the NBA landscape might have looked like had Michael Jordan not taken a two year hiatus; what might the career of Hakeem Olajuwon, winner of the two championships in Jordan’s absence, look like on paper without those elusive rings? He’s certainly not as legitimate a Top 10 ever candidate. Timing is a delicate thing that when falling one man’s way (or vice versa) can forever alter the perception of his career. Ricky Steamboat is always going to be remembered as a former World Heavyweight Champion. Without that brief run with the big gold belt in WCW, he would be right there with Piper, Rude, and Perfect as one of the greatest stars of his era to never win the big one. He famously dropped the Intercontinental Championship in WWE to Honky Tonk Man, after a very brief title reign, allegedly because he showed commitment to his family and wanted to take time off to be with his newborn son. What if WWE learns of that intention 65 days earlier? Does The Dragon still win the IC Title at WrestleMania III? If he doesn’t, how does that change the complexion of the match? And without that match, does the Steamer have the credibility to go back to WCW and win the NWA Championship? Timing, ladies and gentlemen…how fascinating? 58. Lance Storm For the period of time when Lance Storm was a top mid-carder, nobody who held a mid-card championship felt safe. Title changes were nearly as common as the turn of a calendar. Take the WCW United States Title as an example. Storm first won it in July 2000 and, from then until WCW closed its doors the following March, there were eight more title changes. Over in WWE, title switching was just as common an epidemic. Storm won the IC Title in July 2001; the title changed hands 10 times over the next year. During the year that followed Storm’s first WWE Tag Team Championship victory in 2002, those belts changed hands nine times. So, Lance didn’t exactly come of age in an era of lengthy mid-card title runs. However, he was a very good wrestler and an underrated straightforward heel who racked up 8 titles in three highly productive mainstream years in the business. There was a knock on him for being boring, but let him take solace in the fact that far more charismatic individuals accomplished a lot less. 57. Barry Windham One of the goals of my first book was to promote the career of Barry Windham as one of the greatest that nobody ever talks about anymore. A bonafide main-event star without the championship accolades to support that status, he joins names like Piper, Rude, Hall, and Hennig as amongst the greatest to have never won the World Heavyweight Championship (though he did win the NWA version after it became secondary to the rechristened WCW Title in the early 1990s). I remember getting emails from fans that started watching pro wrestling during WWE’s New Generation or beyond questioning Windham’s inclusion in the Four Horsemen induction to the WWE Hall of Fame in 2012. I immediately abandoned the writing schedule I’d been keeping and wrote Barry Windham’s chapter for The WrestleMania Era to take advantage of the internal fire lit from those fans not having enough appreciation for what he did in the business. It goes back to the WWE-led mission to glorify the Monday Night Wars but largely ignore the 1980s conflicts that led to it. It was the NWA in the late 1980s that best showcased the well-rounded talents of Barry Windham. His 9 ½ month United States Title reign is one of the longest ever and his six combined Tag Team Championships across WWE and NWA/WCW puts him in rarified air as well. So, let it never be forgotten how good Barry Windham was or how much he accomplished. 56. Ivan and Nikita Koloff As mentioned in The WrestleMania Era, I grew up watching the National Wrestling Alliance in the Carolinas and, in studying NWA history, I had a hard time separating Ivan and Nikita Koloff. They had profound impacts on each other’s personal and professional lives, with Ivan bringing Nikita to Jim Crockett Promotions and Nikita stimulating Ivan’s path to born-again Christianity (Ivan is now an ordained minister). So, to me, they’re inseparable in hindsight despite each having substantial careers apart. “The Russians,” as they were known, are quite possibly the greatest ever example of how to work an anti-American gimmick – to live and breathe it to the point that it’s in your bones. Nikita lived it so much that he learned to speak Russian and changed his legal name to reflect his wrestling name. Together, the Koloffs combined for a pair of NWA Tag Team Championships; and there was no more important Tag Team Title in pro wrestling lore than the NWA Tag straps circa the 1980s. Ivan added a third reign with a different partner and, though his WWE Championship victory was not counted for this list due to it taking place outside the WM Era, Nikita’s 5th longest reign in history as the United States Champion was a major reason for their placement in the 70th percentile. 55. Ron Simmons The first-ever black World Heavyweight Champion, Ron Simmons is one of history’s most underrated figures. As an All-American at Florida State University, he was also one of wrestling lore’s most accomplished athletes to make a career of performing on the 20’X20’ canvas. Outside of Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar, is there a more successful athlete to make the transition to pro wrestling? Simmons also boasts another important distinction as one half of the longest reigning WCW Tag Team Champions in history. Demolition is celebrated for their record reign in WWE and rightfully so, but the WCW equivalent – Doom – has never been as heralded. Doom put Simmons on the map, giving him the freedom to hone his craft en route to becoming a WCW headliner in 1991 and winning the WCW Championship in 1992. He later replicated his tag team success in WWE as one half of the APA, who combined for three reigns as champions. 54. Mr. Perfect Not many wrestlers can say that they held the top secondary championship in both of the promotions widely recognized as the most substantial in history; a very few can say that they held those titles for 17 total months or longer. Though that track record is far from perfect – nobody’s is in pro wrestling – only one of the men to achieve such honors was ever good enough to be given the moniker of “Perfect” : Mr. Perfect, to be exact, Curt Hennig. Mr. Perfect was arguably the Intercontinental Championship’s greatest titleholder. As much as Randy Savage is justifiably credited for building the belt’s reputation through his masterpiece with Ricky Steamboat at WrestleMania III and Honky Tonk Man is placed on a historical pedestal for being the title’s longest reigning champion, Hennig should be credited for the IC Title becoming the “worker’s championship” that so many great wrestlers (Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and Chris Jericho to name a very few) once pegged as the ultimate achievement for their careers. Hennig was the perfect Intercontinental Champion, a character strong enough to keep the belt on-par with the World Championship and a performer capable of having the best match on any card. His United States and Tag Team Title reigns in WCW boosted his profile. 53. Rick Steiner A strong argument can be that The Steiner Brothers were the greatest tag team ever. Pro Wrestling Illustrated once ranked them the 2nd greatest of all-time. With nine Tag Team Championship runs in WWE and NWA/WCW as a duo, the Steiners rank behind only The Dudley Boyz in total title reigns for one unit. Rick Steiner, himself, ranks fourth in the WrestleMania Era in the total number of days (680) reigned as a Tag Team Champion, putting him behind only Demolition, Kane, and Billy Gunn. So, essentially, we’re talking about a fixture in the mainstream wrestling scene for over a decade. It could be just me – I put Scott, by himself, into the all-time Top 90 in my book – but there’s nary a conversation to be had in the last ten years about The Dog-Faced Gremlin. Is it a reflection of the modern inconsequence of the tag team division? Is it a disregard of NWA/WCW history? For whatever reason, Rick’s is not a name you hear much. Hopefully, we’re reaching a point where that can change. WWE are the gatekeepers of pro wrestling lore right now and they are beginning to relent on their once constant barrage on WCW historically. It’s time we all took notice of not just the World Championship-winning member of The Steiner Brothers, but of his older brother too. 52. John Morrison Not far behind on the list of the WrestleMania Era’s most successful tag team wrestlers is John Morrison, whose 657 total days as a WWE Tag Team Champion are less than a month off of Steiner’s pace. JoMo is the only man in the modern age, in fact, to hold the Tag Team Titles for nearly 300 days or longer with two different tag team partners. Considering when he was dominant in the division, it could thus be argued that Morrison carried the WWE Tag Team scene between 2005 and 2009. No matter in this case that the division was historically weak during that period, for Morrison was never weak; those years saw him rise the ranks to becoming a consistent Intercontinental Championship threat, a 3-time IC Champion for a combined 209 days, and eventually even a World Heavyweight Title contender during the final year of his WWE run. Was he a beneficiary of the Brand Extension’s greater number of championships to attain? Absolutely, but he was also one of the most uniquely gifted in-ring performers of his time; let his title record reflect that rather than when he won them. 51. “Ravishing” Rick Rude It is thanks to men like Rick Rude and Mr. Perfect that I feel the Title Formula is justified in its effectiveness. In between them on this list sit two wrestlers who won at least 8 titles each and join Rude and Hennig on the roster of men who never held the World Championship. Yet, with half or less title accolades, Rude and Perfect still sandwich that more heavily golden-clad pair. Rude accomplished his track record on the back of the second longest United States Championship reign of all-time. He joins Lex Luger as the only two men who ever held the US Title for a year or more in a single reign and is the last of the six men who have ever held the two top mainstream mid-card championships (along with WWE’s Intercontinental) for a year or more in total. Of course, he was a noteworthy IC Champion who won the title in a headlining match at WrestleMania V and dropped it in an equally high profile match at Summerslam ’89. His six months as NWA Tag Team Champion with Manny Fernandez round out his title achievements. What a legend…
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