There is often debate as to whether or not WWE should be recognized as a sport, but much like every other sport on the planet, it is controlled by statistics. World Championship reigns, longest reigning Champions, WrestleMania attendances, Superstars' career bests and some other statistics WWE wouldn’t want you to find out.
WWE is influenced by statistics and every year the company tries to do better than the following year. WrestleMania is a prime example, as last year the company set the record for the highest ever attendance at the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara when they welcomed over 76,000 fans.
This year WWE are hoping to break new attendance records when they travel to Arlington, Texas for WrestleMania 32.
The WWE likes to demonstrate that it's becoming bigger and better every year and statistics are a good way to monitor this.
Raw ratings are a statistic that many fans recognize and they're something that the WWE will also want to keep an eye on in order to monitor the current product.
The following is a list of the most fascinating and interesting statistics from the WWE over the past decade. These are guaranteed to have you questioning how the WWE managed to keep them under wraps.
Statistics taken from profightdb.com.
20 20. CM Punk was a hard act to follow
CM Punk left WWE following the 2014 Royal Rumble, but he will mostly be remembered for his 434 day run as WWE Champion, the longest of the modern era. This title run engulfed 2012 and Punk didn’t surrender the Championship until The Royal Rumble in 2013 when he lost to The Rock.
The interesting statistic here is that one champion held the title throughout 2012, but six men then held the championship throughout 2013. Does this mean WWE found it hard to find “the man” to follow in CM Punk’s footsteps?
19 19. John Cena has granted over 500 wishes
The WWE has become well known for their charity work and ability to give back to the community and the armed forces, but John Cena has taken it upon himself to become the face of the Make a Wish Foundation.
The fifteen time World Champion now holds the record for the most wishes granted by an individual person with over 500 wishes granted. The next closest person to Cena is Justin Beiber with 250 wishes.
18 18. Jake “The Snake” Roberts never held a title in WWE
Jake “The Snake” Roberts is a WWE Hall of Famer and regarded as one of the WWE's biggest legends. Following his successful battle with cancer, Roberts returned for a one-off appearance at WWE’s Old School Raw in 2014 where he was once again welcomed by the WWE Universe.
Interestingly enough, Roberts is one of the most recognizable superstars from his era, but he never actually won a WWE Championship.
Wrestling wasn’t as title driven back then as it is today and Roberts was more concerned about his character and giving the crowd what they wanted. Maybe that's what's important after all?
17 17. Seth Rollins' Raw Record
There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the former WWE World Heavyweight Champion is one of the most hardworking superstars in the business, but the following statistic proves it beyond all reasonable doubt.
Since The Shield made their debut at Survivor Series in 2012, Seth Rollins failed to miss a single episode of Raw between then and his injury this past November.
This means that he didn't miss a day of work in almost three years. Incredible.
16 16. WrestleMania 31 Made History
WrestleMania is WWE’s biggest show of the year and every year the company finds a way to create history. 2015 was no different.
The 31st annual event is now the highest grossing WWE event of all time. Despite other WrestleMania events having higher attendances, Mania 31 earned around $12.6 Million when 76, 796 fans packed Levi’s Stadium to watch Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns headline.
Although, WrestleMania 32 might once again shatter some records given the amount of fans that are estimated to be in attendance since AT&T Stadium can hold over 100,000 fans.
15 15. The Undertaker's WrestleMania Streak
The most famous streak in the history of WWE actually began on The Undertaker’s birthday at WrestleMania VII. However, the interesting stat here is that The Undertaker actually failed to win one of his matches and didn’t appear at two WrestleMania’s en route to his 21-1 current record.
The Undertaker failed to pin or submit Giant Gonzales at WrestleMania IX, Gonzales used chloroform to knock Undertaker out and the referee called for the disqualification because he cheated, making this the only match Undertaker didn’t win cleanly during his streak.
Taker didn’t even appear at WrestleMania X, until returning at WrestleMania XI to defeat King Kong Bundy.
14 14. The Royal Rumble Doesn’t Favor Divas Title Challengers
Interestingly, even though the Divas Championship was only introduced to the WWE in 2008, the Championship itself has only changed hands once at the Royal Rumble, which was in 2011 when Eve Torres took the title.
This is due neither to Divas retaining their title, nor is it bad booking, but just a weird coincidence as the belt is rarely up for grabs at the event. Last year’s Royal Rumble instead favored a Tag Team Match between Paige and Natalya and The Bella Twins. This year's Royal Rumble did see the Divas Championship put on the line, but Charlotte retained her Championship in a match against Becky Lynch, thanks to help from her father Ric Flair.
13 13. Brock Lesnar, The History Maker?
Not only was Brock Lesnar the youngest ever World Champion when he defeated The Rock in 2002 to lift the belt at just 25 years old, but he's also the youngest ever Royal Rumble winner, when he won the Rumble the following year.
Add that to the fact that Brock is the only person to ever defeat The Undertaker at WrestleMania and it's easy to see how WWE feels about Brock Lesnar.
Lesnar is also the only ever wrestler to become UFC Champion and NCAA Division One Heavyweight Champion.
12 12. Paige’s Championship Record
Paige is the only ever Diva to hold the NXT and Divas Championships at the same time and she is also the inaugural NXT Women’s Champion. However, her shots at the Divas Championship in 2015 are the ones that will go down in history.
Over the course of the year Paige was handed 40 Divas Championship shots (this includes WWE Live shows and TV shows) and didn’t win the title on any occasion. No Diva has ever been handed that many opportunities and failed to capture the championship.
This also includes her four Divas Championship shots on Pay-per-view last year.
11 11. WWE Depends on Roman Reigns
Roman Reigns is currently being groomed to become the new face of WWE after John Cena retires, so it makes sense that Roman is already taking on a heavier schedule.
Since Seth Rollins' injury last year, it seems that Roman Reigns has main evented 14 of the 16 Raw episodes between October and The Royal Rumble, which includes 11 consecutive shows.
Roman Reigns continued to be a part of the main event picture since he earned the right to main event WrestleMania 32 against Triple H after winning at Fastlane in february.
10 10. The Undertaker’s Entrances
One of The Undertaker’s biggest appeals would have to be his entrance, even though he will be fondly remembered for The Streak. It is his entrances at WrestleMania that set the scene and allowed the fans to get into the proper mindset for his match.
That being said, his entrances have lasted an incredible 14 minutes and 35 seconds in total, which is around a fifth of the amount of time The Undertaker actually spent in the ring during his matches.
Many jokes have been made about how long it takes for The Undertaker to make his way to the ring, but finally the statistics speak for themselves.
9 9. Roman Reigns Match Statistic
Roman Reigns is now a former two-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion having lost his World Title in the history making 2016 Royal Rumble. The current storyline in WWE see The Authority putting Reigns in unwinnable situations to purposely test him.
That being said, Roman Reigns hadly lost a televised WWE match clean by pinfall or submission from March 2015, when Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase and defeated his former Shield brother at WrestleMania 31, until November 2015. How did he lose next? When Sheamus cashed in his Money in the Bank breifcase at the end of Survivor Series.
This statistic has been highlighted by many of the WWE Universe as a way to state that WWE are pushing (maybe way too fast) Reigns as the next face of the company.
8 8. Triple H WrestleMania
The King of Kings is now a fourteen time World Champion and is thought to be one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.
For one of the greatest of all time, it would be expected for him to have a great record on the Grandest Stage of them all, but sadly this is not the case. Triple H has made 19 appearances at WrestleMania and holds the record for the most losses at WWE’s biggest event of the year. Triple H has lost ten times at WrestleMania and is just four appearances behind Undertakers record of 22.
7 7. Dudley Boyz Summer Gold
The record nine-time WWE and WCW Tag Team Champions returned to WWE in late 2015 and have had their sights set on Tag Team gold once again in order to finally become ten time champions.
The shocking statistic behind this is the fact that The Dudley Boys last held The Team Titles when current WWE Commentator John Bradshaw Layfield was world champion, back in the Summer of 2004.
That means that The Dudley’s have gone almost twelve years without claiming any gold in WWE, but they were on hiatus for most of this, which helps soften the blow a little.
6 6. Sheamus vs Randy Orton
Randy Orton and Sheamus are two of WWE’s current main event caliber stars and two of the best wrestlers to have stepped into the WWE during the current PG era. Between them they've had 16 World Championship reigns and it seems they have a taste for facing each other too.
Many of the WWE Universe think that the decade long feud between John Cena and Randy Orton has defined WWE for the last few years, but in fact it is Sheamus and Randy Orton who have faced incredibly often, as the two fought 31 times in 2015, including house shows.
5 5. Triple H’s Royal Rumble
Triple H holds some of the greatest records in WWE, having been a pivotal member of the WWE locker room for over two decades. An interesting Royal Rumble statistic shows that three men have won the Royal Rumble after entering the match directly after The King of Kings.
Rey Mysterio entered at Number two in 2006 and went on to hold the record for the longest time in the match at more than 62 minutes while John Cena won the 2008 Royal Rumble after entering number 30 and eliminating The King of Kings and Randy Orton won the 2009 Royal Rumble after he entered at Number eight and Triple H entered at Number seven.
4 4. Diva Title Defense Pay-per-view 2015
The Divas Championship was only defended seven times on pay-per-view last year which helped Nikki Bella snag the record for longest reigning Divas Championship with a total of 301 days. The WWE favored tag matches at both The Royal Rumble and WrestleMania last year before The Divas Revolution involving NXT’s crop of Divas took over Battleground and SummerlSlam which in turn gave Nikki an easier route to becoming the Longest Reigning champion.
3 3. Roman Reigns Royal Rumble
Roman Reigns is only the third superstar in WWE History to walk into the Royal Rumble with the Title that he won the right to fight for the year before. Roman won the 2015 Royal Rumble for the right to fight for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship before winning it last year on Raw and walking into The Royal Rumble with the Championship.
The two men to do this before him were Brock Lesnar when he won the 2003 Royal Rumble for the right to fight for the WWE Championship before walking into the 2004 Rumble with the title and Edge, who won 2010 Royal Rumble for the right to fight for the World Heavyweight Championship but he failed to defeat Chris Jericho and instead captured the title later in the year to walk into the 2011 Royal Rumble as Champion.
2 2. WrestleMania Attendances
The WWE’s biggest show of the year is always on another scale to everything else the company does throughout the year. WrestleMania is now thought to be one of the biggest shows in the world and currently holds the attendance record at 93,173 from WrestleMania III at the Silverdome in Michigan.
WrestleMania 29 comes pretty close to this with 80,676 people in attendance. Many predict that 2016’s WrestleMania 32 will dominate all other statistics with over 100,000 fans expected to pack out AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas in April.
1 1. Injury-mania is Running Wild
Perhaps the greatest statistic to come out of WWE in 2016, is that every superstar who left WrestleMania 31 with a Championship is now currently out injured.
Seth Rollins was the WWE World Heavyweight Champion after cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase, John Cena was United States Champion after defeating Rusev, Daniel Bryan was Intercontinental Champion after winning the annual ladder match. While Nikki Bella was Divas Champion but didn’t defend at WrestleMania and Tyson Kidd and Cesaro held the Tag Team Championships after coming out on top in the fatal four way on the pre-show. So, does WWE really take good care of their champions?