Throughout the squared circle's storied history, there has been hundreds of thousands of matches, with more winners and ever more losers. From wrestling event attendances, longest title reigns and even some WWE theme music, this article looks to collate some interesting and lesser-known facts about wrestling.
EVENTS
Seth Rollins Was The First Wrestler To Win A Main Event At WrestleMania With An Age Lower Than The Number Of The WrestleMania.
WrestleMania XVI did not feature a traditional male singles match. The WWE's biggest pay-per-view of 2000 was one of the weirder ones you'll ever see. Making it more famous for something that it didn’t feature, rather than something which it did.
Another noticeable absentee is Rowdy Roddy Piper, who never featured at a Summerslam event despite being one of the biggest stars of the WWF in the 80’s.
When WCW visited the Democratic People’s Republic however, nobody dared to be absent – with 150,000 people were supposedly forced to create the largest live crowd in 1995 when WCW and New Japan teamed up Collision in North Korea. Seeing Ric Flair take on Antonio Inoki.
Who holds the record for the longest ever match in pro wrestling - Antonio Inoki vs Masa Saito - NJPW The Island Deathmatch (1987) - 125:42
Inoki’s opponent at the aforementioned Collision in Korea was the nature boy Ric flar. Flair & had the last match on WCW Nitro, Ric Flair's last match in TNA was also against Sting.
· Sting & Hulk Hogan Have Been In The Ring Together At Starrcade, Bound For Glory, And WrestleMania.
Talking of brothers….
BROTHERS
The Hart Family famously had Owen & Bret as both an effective tag-team with great wrestling chemistry and also mortal foes with incredible matches throughout their careers. However the pair are part of 12 siblings of famed wrestling trainer Stu Hart, 8 of which are brothers and all of who wrestled to different levels of success in their lives.
Other Canadian wrestling icons, Edge and Christian started off in the WWE as storyline brothers, but upon Christian's return to the company in 2009, were acknowledged simply as friends on TV.
Kane & Undertaker are also not brothers. But there position as a dominant ‘Brother of Destruction’ tag-team and the story of their careers would suggest otherwise.
TAG TEAMS
The most different tag titles belongs to the Dudleys, who are the only team to have held the ECW, WCW, WWE, NWA, IWGP and TNA Tag Team titles.
Two tag teams have held the titles for 365 or more days: and The Valiant Brothers & Demolition, whose first reign set the record at 478 days.
Demolition is also the team with the longest combined reign at 698 days,
· Another staple of the 80’s in wrestling was Mr. Fuji, who has the longest combined reign as an individual at 932 combined days with the tag-titles.
The Fabulous Freebirds hold a WCW World Tag Team Title reign of minus six days. Due to a show that was taped on Feb 18th 1991 the Freebirds were filmed dropping the belts that they hadn't even won yet to the Steiners on WCW Pro. On Feb 24th they WON the Championships from Doom on live pay-per-view at the Wrestlewar event. On ninth of March the tape delay title loss aired on Television.
The longest modern run is the New Day who used the Freebird Rule originally used by the fabulous freebirds, allowing any combination of the 3 men to engage in matches to defend the belt.
The Colons…with Carlito and Primo Colon, hold the third longest Tag-team tile run at 280 days.
EVOLUTION
Carlito faced a different member of Evolution at three consecutive Unforgiven pay-per-views. He faced Ric Flair in 2005, Randy Orton in 2006 and Triple H in 2007.
The Undertaker holds the accolade for defeating every member of Evolution at Wrestlemania, vs Ric Flair at Wrestlemania 18, Randy Orton at 21, Batista at 23 and Triple H consecutively at Wrestlemania 27 & 28.
MUSIC
Triple H is a rare example of a WWE wrestler in modern times being allowed to use music not created by Jim Jonson of CFO$ their creators of themes since the 90’s. D Generation X with Run DMC the nostalgic entrance for the attitudes much beloved stable. Aswell as Triple H’s main theme being created and performed by Motorhead.
Other performers who have used non-WWE owned music as an entrance include Sandman’s iconic ECW entrance to the epic same titled song by Metallica. Watch any ECW pay-per-view and notice the glaring difference in the effectiveness of Sandman’s entrance with his iconic theme dubbed over to avoid paying royalties to Metallica.
Ronda Rousey, who even had Joan Jet perform live at Wrestlemania with ‘My Generation’. Rey Mysterio used P.O.D’s ‘Rey Mysterio’ anthem, neither of the artist’s careers would be the same without this song. Others include: Mark Henry & 3,6 Mafia, The Dudley Boyz & Saliva, Stone Cold Steve Austin & Disturbed aswell as the historic ‘Real American’ Hulk Hogan’s theme by Rick Derringer.
Most of the rest of the classic wrestling entrance music that you’ll recognise from the attitude era was either created by or produced by Jim Jonson. He created 140 entrance themes as composer and producer and is credited in some fashion on numerous others.
The connections between popular music and wrestling don’t end there however.
Famed Irish brawler Sheamus, once worked as a bodyguard for U2's Bono.
While Brodus Clay served as a bodyguard for hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg.
Snoop Dogg is the cousin of multiple time women’s champion Sasha Banks, who was escorted to the ring at Wrestlemania by her hip-hop family member during her entrance.
Mick foley was the first performer in WWE history to have a different entrance & exit theme. Foley credits his weight loss and reform of health in reent years in part due to DDP Yoga.
It’s creator, Diamond Dallas Page successfully sued Jay-Z for using the diamond hand sign. DDP and his positive outlook has helped many former athletes and performers overcome addiction and regain control of their lives. Most notably he helped Jake Roberts.
TITLES
Jake "The Snake" Roberts never held a title in the WWF/E.
Someone that suffered no such fate and became the WWE Champion faster than anyone, In 2002, Brock Lesnar made his explosive WWE debut and became the youngest WWE Champion two months after his 25th birthday at Summerslam in 2002 against the Rock.
Brock Lesnar has appeared in video games for WWE, UFC and NFL Madden ’06. The only performer to have ever done so.
Brock also won the IWGP World Title.
Another who achieved the championship was Bob Sapp, a man who became the first black wrestler to become New Japan’s IWGP heavyweight champion. He won the title in 2004, but only held it for 66 days.
But their reigns as different companies champion is far surpassed by The Phenomenal One. AJ Styles is the only wrestler to win the IWGP, TNA, NWA and WWE world titles.
CM Punk became the fastest to become a WWE triple crown champion. He achieved it in just an eight-month span. He won the World heavyweight title on June 30, 2008, the tag team titles with Kofi Kingston on October 27, 2008, and the Intercontinental title on January 19, 2009.
Another multiple time champion across numerous belts in WWE is third generation star Randy Orton. Prior to this year, Randy Orton had never been in a match to become the United States Champion, but he HAD defeated a champion for the title and successfully defended the Championship, while never actually being Champion.
(Booker T was injured in a Best-of-7 vs Benoit in 2006. Orton replaced him, won the series and the title, and defended the title on tv once, while acting as substitute for Booker. Because of this, Booker T was considered the champion, not Orton).
Orton’s partner in esteemed tag-team Rated RKO, was Edge. Who with Sheamus Are The Only Guys To Win King Of The Ring, Money In The Bank, And The Royal Rumble.
A performer who has travelled the globe and unlike Randy Orton is certainly not a one company man is Tajiri, who suprisingly is a former CZW World Champion.
Another former WWE alumni Jamie Noble is a former ROH World Champion. In recent years Noble is more famous for being a performer and behind-the-scenes producer of WWE’s Smackdown.
WOMEN’S WRESTLING
The show, before it’s first episode aired, SmackDown was originally scheduled to be an all-women's wrestling show.
WWE Evolution was WWE’s first attempts at an entirely female show.
A show with no women is the Saudi Arabian shows that culturally won’t allow females to compete in combat sports and take issue with the attires of some of the female performers.
A much more progressive personality, high flying highlight of the 90’s is Lita, who has wins against Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, Kurt Angle, Edge, Christian, Shane McMahon, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and John Cena. All of which have respectable win less ratios throughout their career.
WINNERS & LOSERS
Someone with a surprising run, In 2016, was No Way Jose, who had A Higher Win Percentage Than Brock Lesnar. This is because Baby faces win a lot more on house shows when not on television.
People in wrestling who had the exact opposite run, and couldn’t stop losing was WCW. The company lost $65M in 2000 alone due to a run of show’s that seemingly disappointed the fans whilst sill paying a huge roster enormous salaries.
A wrestler who has said that he never got into the business for the money is Daniel Bryan. In Wrestling Observer history he has won: Best Technical Wrestler (2005–2013). Match of the Year (2007) vs. Takeshi Morishima at ROH Manhattan Mayhem. Most Outstanding Wrestler (2006–2010). Most Outstanding Wrestler of the Decade (2000–2009) But he never had a match rated 5 stars.
Another WWE Smackdown legend is Japanaese KaienTai – Funaki, not remembered for his in-ring acumen rather his fun personality, has a Dave Meltzer awarded 5-star match.
The bushwackers are the only people to have both a 5 star match and a -5 star match from PWI magazine.