As a former member of WWE creative, I can tell you there is only two ways that the Honk-A-Meter is going to end. Either A) a heavily pushed monster will burst onto the scene at some point to destroy Santino in less than 20 seconds (see Ultimate Warrior destroying Honkytonk Man) or B) 13 months from now we will be looking at the new longest running IC Champion of all-time. There’s a good chance creative won’t know which way the outcome will go until it happens too. With months of fluke victories, roll-up wins and countout/DQ losses upon us, it got me thinking – does a longevity equal quality when it comes to title runs? The research yielded mixed results.
Here are the 5 longest IC title runs of all-time:
Honkytonk Man – 14 Months
Randy Savage – 13 Months
Greg Valentine – 9.5 Months
Mr. Perfect – 9.25 Months
Shelton Benjamin – 8 Months
On first glance, this seems to support the thesis that longevity in an IC title reign does in fact equality excellence – after all, Savage, Perfect, and maybe even Valentine would probably all be considered in conversations regarding the top 5-10 IC champs of all-time. Of course, Shelton and Honkytonk…not so much. This does bring us to our first major point…long title runs are mostly a thing of the past…Benjamin is the only one of these in the past 18 years! With more shows to fill, more PPV’s, and more demand for drama…title changes are simply far more frequent now than ever before.
Now let’s look at all of the IC title reigns that lasted UNDER ONE MONTH. Initially, I found that some one the very worst IC champions of all-time made this list…so I thought once again, it would support the claim that length of run does in fact correlate to quality of champion.
IC title runs falling into this category include…Test, Albert, Lance Storm, The Mountie, Marty Jannetty, Dean Douglas, Marc Mero, Road Dogg, D Lo, Rikishi, Golddust, Chyna, Billy Gunn, and Johnny Nitro. That is definitely a who’s who of the least impressive IC champions ever to hold the gold. But here’s where things get tricky…here are the remaining wrestlers who held the IC title for under one month:
RVD (x3)
Christian
Jeff Jarrett
Jeff Hardy
Chris Benoit
Razor Ramon
Kane
Chris Jericho (x3)
Edge (x2)
Steve Austin
Triple H
And just like that the thesis is blown to smithereens. As it so turns out, several of the biggest superstars of in WWE history are also amongst those to possess the shortest IC title reigns in federation history. Expanding our search to other title belts only muddles the matter. Not factoring in belts that were dormant, defunct, or not defended, only three other belts in modern wrestling even possess long title runs in their history…
WWE Championship –
Hulk Hogan (4 years), Hulk Hogan (1 year), JBL (9 months)
Women’s Championship –
Sherri Martel (15 months), Trish Stratus (15 months), Fabulous Moolah (1 year)
Tag Titles –
London & Kendrick (11 months)
This information supports that there is no conclusive correlation between length of title run and caliber of title holder. In looking at the all-time longest WWE title runs, sure there’s Hogan…but one could argue that JBL was one of the weaker heavyweight champions ever. And London & Kendrick certainly were very low of the esteem totem pole – creative just didn’t know what to do with them. Their title reign was one of convenience and booking complacency, whereas Hogan’s was born out of demand and success.
After diving into this topic, its obvious you can be a top superstar with a short run or a not so star performer and still have a long run. Conclusion…Santino Marella is going to be the IC champion for the next 13 months. Hope you’re entertained by this act, because it’s not going anywhere, Actually, what would be funny is after all that if he gets within one week of breaking the record only to job big time and then have to pick up the pieces for the next 15 months. Either way, brace yourselves, because the HONK-A-METER is just beginning.
