Good day, one and all. Welcome to a very special edition of Ask 411 Wrestling. I am your host, Jed Shaffer, and you’re in for a treat. Okay, maybe not a treat, but definitely some surprises. Why? We’ll get to that in due time.

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You Q, I A

Shawn gets the lone question this week. Yes, one question. It’s a short question, with a big answer.

Which wrestler has wrestled the most former or future world champions? The championships I would count are NWA, WCW, WWE(all variants) TNA and ECW.

When I first got this gig back in late December, Sforcina sent me a list of questions to get started, so I’d have one edition of the column with wheels up in advance. This question caught my eye from the outset. I like useless data, and this scratches that itch in bulk.

And then I started to think about the logistics of it. My curiosity was too piqued by then to not go down the road, but holy crow, did I under-estimate the scope of this project. Hours and HOURS and hours and HOURS of research, poured into one big Mister Falcon of a spreadsheet. I’ve been working on this since the first week of January, believe it or not.

Well, because this question took me so damned long, I’m gonna get a lot of mileage out of the answer. Not only will I answer the question, I’m gonna give you some bonus material you didn’t ask for. Because I’m a nice guy.

Okay, it’s a way to make this column a one-question column. For two months of time, squeezing that much content out of it seems fair, right?

Before we get to the answer, though, let’s discuss the criteria, because it’s not just as simple as the question asks. I can’t chart the career of every wrestler ever. Even if I was single, that’d be borderline impossible. So, I’m limiting this to champions. I think there’s logic in that anyway; I don’t think Bo Dallas or Jerry Flynn or Chris Chetti are gonna accumulate the numbers a former champ will. If you think my interpretation is incorrect, you’re cordially invited to do this project yourself. I’ll spring for the ibuprofen. You’ll need it.

Now, the question specified WWE, NWA, WCW, ECW and TNA. That is a wide net to cast. For instance, let’s look at ECW. Do I go back to its founding? Do I really gotta look up the career of Johnny Hotbody and cross-reference it against Jeff Jarrett and Samoa Joe and Big Show? WWE goes back to the early 60’s, way before the days of nationwide touring circuits and coast-to-coast TV deals. And the NWA goes back to the 40’s. There are many unrecognized title reigns like Carlos Colon, not to mention the fracturing of the belt from situations like Edouard Carpentier’s maybe-victory over Lou Thesz. And as we go back further, accurate match records gets dubious, as we’ve previously discussed. What’s to be gained from charting the champion vs. champion careers of men like Orville Brown and Don Leo Jonathan? There has to be a common-sense cut-off, or the research to answer the question becomes full of extraneous data on people you don’t care about, and grows in scope to needing Deep Blue to sort it all out. If that seems unfair or incomplete, I will happily provide you the spreadsheet I made as a start, and you can go see if Jimmy Snuka ever fought Giant Baba. Me, I’m instituting some parameters, for my own sanity (unless someone wants to chip into a Patreon … I’ll go back to Frank Gotch if you’re paying me), and so I can put this puppy to bed. The only thing is, the same parameters won’t work across all promotions and championships. So let’s run them down.

For the WWWF/WWF/WWE Championship (the championship currently held by AJ Styles), I did not go back any farther than Hulk Hogan’s first reign. Vince’s national expansion campaign seems the most logical starting point to me; it’s when his promotion began its ascent from prominent territory to THE WORLDWIDE LEADER IN SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT. And besides, there’s no natural cut-off point prior to him. If I go back farther to where I do the the NWA, I’m only bringing in two more champions: Bob Backlund and Iron Sheik. Sheiky-baby won’t tilt the scales much, and Backlund’s already included on account of his ’94 *cough* reign. Before that, there’s just nowhere natural to cut it off, and a lot of those wrestlers didn’t go deep into the 80’s anyway, so the potential for crossover is minimal at best. Hogan makes the most sense as the starting point.

For the WWF/WWE World Heavyweight Championship (2002-2013), there was no need to define parameters. Its life cycle is self-contained. WWE Universal Championship, same story. And I am not including the NXT Championship. WWE doesn’t even call it a world championship, so I won’t either.

The NWA Championship is tricky, due to its convoluted history of dipping into and out of national relevance. While “The Colorado Kid” Mike Rapada does indeed have his name in the history books alongside Ric Flair and Lou Thesz as an NWA World Champion, the belt’s prominence at the time does not give his reign the same weight as others (well, maybe Tommy Rich’s). So, I had to make some hard decisions on this one. To start, Ric Flair’s first reign is my starting point. Going farther back doesn’t really make sense for a couple reasons; the NWA slowly starting to grow out of the territorial mindset in the 80’s, and Flair epitomized that. Plus, many champions directly preceding Flair got championships down the line or elsewhere (Dusty Rhodes, Harley Race, Terry Funk). Not counting the cups of coffee had by Rich or Baba, I’d have to back to 1974 to find another unique NWA World Champ in Jack Brisco, and then we’re getting into the hinterlands. So, Flair is the starting point. We stop, temporarily, at Tatsumi Fujinami’s win in 1991. This reign is recognized by WWE, but Flair’s regaining of the strap is not. I know this cuts out a few people (Rick Rude, Barry Windham, Muta), but if WWE doesn’t want to recognize it, it made sense to me. This also means the 90’s dark period of the NWA is excluded, so, sorry for all you Dan Severn fans out there. We do pick back up when TNA enters the picture, but drop it again when they make the break. While I acknowledge the Pearce/Cabana rivalry put the title in front of some eyes, the NWA no longer had a true national footprint anymore. Plus, if I continue on past the split, where do I stop? Do I really include guys like Kahagas and Jax Dane? No thanks. Finally, I did not include any of the unrecognized title switches during Flair’s time (Carlos Colon, Jack Veneno, Victor Jovica).

For WCW, again, its life cycle is self-contained. No hard choices here.

For TNA/Impact/GFW/Impact, it’s pretty easy: from the title’s inception after the promotion’s split from the NWA to current, being Austin Aries at the time of this writing.

And finally, ECW. I started with the transformation of Eastern Championship Wrestling into Extreme Championship Wrestling, and stopped at Guilty As Charged 2001. While I know there are a few notable names in pre-Crisis ECW (Don Muraco, Jimmy Snuka, Tito Santana), it was not a world championship at the time. I mean, even ECW disavowed it after Shane Douglas threw down the NWA World Title, so, if they didn’t count it, why should I? I also did not include WWECW, on account of it sucking and not being ECW in any way. Also, and perhaps a reasonable more objective reason, is that all but three WWECW Champions went on to hold, or previously held, world championship gold within the company or elsewhere. Those three outliers: Chavo Guerrero, John Morrison and Ezekiel Jackson. [makes dismissive wanking motion]

Another criteria to keep in mind are gimmicks. And to that end, I mean: I was not discriminatory here. Peter Polaco wrestled under many names: PJ Walker, Aldo Montoya and Justin Credible. The gimmick Justin Credible is the one that won a world championship, but Peter Polaco is the man behind all of them, so he’s on the list. Keep this in mind later, when you see some surprising match-ups.

One final piece of criteria before we get to the fun. Wrestling’s format has undergone a lot of changes in the past few decades, and by that I mean matches themselves. Gauntlet matches, Royal Rumbles, Double Jeopardy matches, Elimination Chambers, reverse battle royals … it’s so much more than two men enter, one man leaves. All those match choices can get complex, and can mean two people can be in the same match and never cross paths. So, again, I had to make some common sense decisions. In the end, the only matches I did not consider are battle royals and Royal Rumbles. The reason being is that you can’t assure interaction between two people in one of those. Just because The Sandman and Eli Drake were in the same battle royal doesn’t mean they actually wrestled each other, and that’s the crux of the question: wrestling each other.

Now, one more thing to discuss before we start dispensing with actual info, and that is the accuracy of my reporting. I referenced Google and YouTube to begin with and only accepted video evidence or verifiable listings. Then, I went through all the “no” answers and compared them against Profightdb’s listings, because Google and YouTube are not all inclusive. But then again, as we’ve discussed, Profightdb is dubious too. I don’t doubt what’s included on it so much as the completeness of it. For example, I found this gem Googling while looking up Jinder Mahal:

Yes, that’s Jinder Mahal vs. Sycho Sid. This is a thing that happened, in this timeline, and you can’t unsee it.

And Profightdb has no record of it happening whatsoever.

I found plenty of examples in the opposite as well, where Profightdb had a match listing and Google didn’t. This doesn’t mean either can’t be trusted. But it does mean that the results represent my best efforts with the utilities at hand over the past two months. Inaccuracies are possible when there isn’t one omnipotent, unquestionable source to which I could reference. If you feel the need to spot-check me and prove that Shane Douglas and The Miz faced off once, I only ask you be kind about it.

So, now that we’ve burned up several pages on preamble, let’s do the business. First, we’re gonna tackle some fun stuff. If you just want the answer, scroll down a ways. But you’re missing out. First up, how about the weirdest matches I could find? Matches you wouldn’t think happened, but did? Matches like …

Eddie Guerrero vs. Terry Funk? It happened, on May 5, 1989. This was in the build-up, obviously, to Funk’s feud with Ric Flair, so he squashed Eddie like a bug.

Not weird enough? How about March 8, 2002, at New Japan’s Hyper Battle ’02, where Tatsumi Fujinami and El Samurai squared off against workrate emperors Giant Silva and Great Khali?

We go to England for the next weird one. May 27, 2006 (my 29th birthday), England, 1PW’s Know Your Enemy. A triple threat match for the 1PW Title, between Christian Cage, Abyss and Steve Corino. None of these things are quite like the other.

Justin Credible’s early career was full of world champion face-offs, under the name PJ Walker; Undertaker, Scott Steiner, Lex Luger and Yokouna were all in his first two months as a jobber in WWE in 1993. But as Credible, he also wrestled Vader once. In 2013, for PWS.

And finally, Goldberg stepped into the ring on Nitro in March of 1999 with a true ring technician: The Sandman. That feels like a Mad Lib.

I could go on and on, but there’s plenty more stuff to look at. Like, the least prolific world champions ever. The bottom 10, in fact.

Coming in at 102, the least prolific world champion should come as no shock to those with long memories: it’s WCW’s worst publicity stunt and the fourth most famous member of his family, David Arquette, having faced a whopping 3 other champions. I can see you scratching your head on that third champion, though. Deputy Dewey was part of a handicap match with Alex Riley against Randy Orton on Raw back in December 2010. I was as shocked as you are.

At 101, it’s Ron “Hands of Stone” Garvin. The Rugged one, per my research, only crossed paths with 6 other world champions.

Tied for 99 are ”The Modern Day Warrior” Kerry Von Erich and Vince Russo with 7 apiece. Seen through that lens, are you more impressed by Russo’s prolific career or embarrassed by Von Erich’s lack of same?

At 98 is a certifiable legend, and someone who would kick my ass for even writing this, Harley Race. Sorry, Mr. Race, but I showed you only clocking in with 10 meetings with fellow gold holders. It seems hard to believe, but part of that can also be that his career started long before my research period.

Three men are tied at 95, with 13 meetings with other champions. Yokozuna, former Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter, and The Ultimate Warrior.

Number 94 brings us 14 meetings with fellow champions and the late, great Fezzik himself, Andre the Giant.

And lastly, number 93. He’s a current guy, so he’s got a lot of time to bring this number up from 15, and that’s E_Li Drake (trademark Dino Zee). Still, for his career so far, that’s pretty impressive.

Other things of note … Ron Killings has faced more world champions than John Cena (only 50-49, but still). Rhino has faced more than Hulk Hogan, and it isn’t even close; Hogan has 41, while “The Man-Beast” has 60. The Miz and Steve Austin are tied at 42. And, for a man whose career just. won’t. end, Terry Funk only has 35, only one more than Bam Bam Bigelow, and one less than Abyss.

And now, finally, we come to the main event. The top 10 most prolific champions, per my research. Now’s the time to make a guess, but I promise you … you will not get it. I didn’t.

Drum roll, please …

Three men are tied for number 10, so it’s a little more than a top 10. Clocking in with 61 champions having been dueled is a man who is, due to being tied, not quite on his own …

Christian (Cage). Tied with him are …

Booker T and

Yeah, that’s right. ”The Nature Boy” Ric Flair, only has 61, despite having, approximately, a 137 year long career. And Christian and Booker T tied him. Go on and take a break and process that a while, cause it gets a lot weirder.

Number 9, having faced a whopping 62 former or future world champions in his career …

Yup. The man whose title runs were either ADHD hotshots, or vanity runs that lasted longer than most US Presidential terms, ”The King Of The Mountain” Jeff Jarrett makes the top 10.

Two men are tied at number 7, clocking in with 63 former or future world champions. First up …

Yup. I’m as shocked as you are. Before I started it, I took bets with Sforcina and former Re-Writing The Book (over on Wrestlecrap) writer Neil Cathan on who was #1. The Undertaker was my pick. I figured his extraordinarily long career, constantly being at the top of the card, having seen much roster turnover … and yet, here we are.

And he is tied with …

I don’t know what’s harder to believe; Undertaker only has 63, or Brother Nero somehow has 63. Between WWE and TNA, though (and a tiny smattering of OMEGA), he managed to cross paths with a lot of wrestlers, from Undertaker to The Miz to Sting to Jerry Lynn. I know, it’s hard to fathom, right? And just think, Hardy, Jeff is the first wrestler on here to still be full-time active, so this number is likely to climb.

Two men are tied for fifth place, with 64 matches against former or future world champs. The first of the two is …

”The Whole F’n Show”, “Mr. Monday Night”, “Mr. Pay-Per-View” Rob *points at self with thumbs* Van *points at self with thumbs* Dam.

Coincidentally, the man he’s tied with is a man he has championship ties with …

Kane can credit his extraordinarily prolific career to length and gimmick changes. And if WWE continues to book him in high profile situations (please, for the love of all that is good in the world, make it stop), that number might inch upwards just a little more yet. I like the former tag team partners having the same number.

All by himself at number 4, and synchronistically someone whose career intersected Kane’s in a rather memorable way …

The man who slaps tornadoes, Matt Hardy. He faced 65 future or former title holders over the course of his many, many, many personae, and strongly dislikes mustard. A quick Googling will also reveal that there is an Angelfire page (SO 90’S) that lists all his Matt Facts, which is the reason the internet was invented.

Two men are tied for second place, having fought against 66 separate champions. First, we have …

Everybody’s favorite cool dad, Chris Jericho. I was gonna post his WCW theme song – the one that’s a bizarre, inside-out rip-off of “Evenflow” – but this seemed like a better throwback.

And his fellow champion at number two, the man Sforcina bet on …

No, not The Rock. The coffin-surfer himself, The Big Show. I just like The Rock’s “eeeee-uhhhhh-eeeeee-uhhhhhh!” noise a lot more than his doofy theme song.

Okay.

Here we go.

#1.

You got your guess ready?

Cause you’re wrong.

So very, very, very wrong.

Ladies and gentlemen …

Having faced seventy-one former and future champions over the course of his career …

I’m not kidding here. Bubba Ray Dudley is your most prolific champion ever. I did the math three times. Isn’t it mind-boggling? When you think about it, though, it starts to make sense. Original ECW. WWE, pre- and post-WCW merger. TNA. Lengthy runs in all three, working with everybody from Taz and Masato Tanaka to all three members of The Shield, Sting, Booker T, every notable name of the Attitude era, even Vince McMahon himself. Every unique ECW World Champion that wasn’t champion elsewhere? He faced them. Every unique TNA Champion that didn’t hold it elsewhere? Faced all of them except one (Eli Drake). Weirdly? I could not find a single match with John Cena or Shawn Michaels as opponents, only partners, which kind of surprised me.

Still.

Would you … could you have guessed he would have such a career?

So, Shaun. There’s your answer. Bubba Ray Dudley.

Now, in lieu of the normal closing feature, I’m stopping here. My brain is fried, but I never have to think about this again! See you in sevenish.