Sports fans are all about their statistics. They want to know record holders and oddities, not to mention the sort of unexpected metrics that separate winners from losers, drawn into sharper relief by the “moneyball” phenomenon.

Pro wrestling operates in a difference sphere from conventional sports. The business operates around predetermined outcomes and an emphasis on factors like storytelling and personality over athletic exhibition, much less competition.

WWE has not become any more legitimate as a sport now than it was previously, but the company has taken strides toward professionalizing and presenting a more serious, sport-like product in the current era of programming. That dynamic includes paying greater attention to statistics if all varieties. A highlight reel of records and unusual feats gets played in the lead up to each year’s Royal Rumble event and the company clearly pays attention when champions broach record long reigns. These kinds of statistics help sell the legitimacy of wrestling and communicate to viewers a sense of watching history in the making.

Not all statistics are created, nor treated equally, though. For every figure and fact like The Undertaker’s two decade long undefeated streak at WrestleMania, a first time ever scenario for the women’s roster, or New Day’s record long tag title reign, there are others that WWE does not, or has ceased to remind us of, or even make mention of at all for a variety of reasons. This article takes a look at twenty noteworthy statistics that WWE has chosen to ignore.

16 Finn Balor Started The Universal Championship Curse

The Universal title has had its struggles. In just two and a half years, the title has twice been vacated due to medical reasons, when all indications were that the champion at hand was going to have a lengthy reign (Finn Balor and Roman Reigns). Otherwise, the title has mostly been dominated by part timers, including Brock Lesnar’s year and a half with the title that has generally been unpopular with the fans. Kevin Owens is the only full time champ to have seen a full reign through.

This seemingly cursed title got off to a rocky start with Balor, whom WWE will only occasionally volunteer is a former world champion, and who had to relinquish the title before he could defend it even once.

15 John Cena’s World Title Reigns May Match Ric Flair’s, But Not His Duration

In 2017, John Cena tied the WWE recognized record for most world championship reigns by a single competitor, matching Ric Flair at 16. The logic follows that Cena etched his name in history, standing alongside Flair as an all time great for sheer number of titles won.

Cena’s most recent WWE Championship reign came to a close after just one month and is emblematic of a less flattering statistic WWE doesn’t advertise. While Cena may have as many reigns as Flair, he hasn’t reigned for nearly as long as The Nature Boy. Cena’s count includes trading the title back and forth with rivals like Randy Orton and Edge, as well as short term reigns as a transitional champ. Flair had more sustained runs as the man, though his total count of reigns and days gets muddied by phantom title changes at non-televised shows overseas.

14 Roman Reigns’s Brother Beat Him To The Tag Team Titles

Roman Reigns seemed pegged as the top star of his generation, and when he returns from his battles with leukemia, there’s a good chance he’ll pick up right where he left off. WWE hasn’t hidden Reigns’s family ties to people like The Rock, Rikishi, and Yokozuna. However, they haven’t noted that Reigns’s own brother made it to WWE before him. While the first title Reigns won on the main roster was the Tag Team Championship with Seth Rollins, his sibling beat him to that same feat by several years.

Rosey debuted as half of Three Minute Warning, but it was his comedic face team with The Hurricane that allowed him to strike gold, capturing the tag titles once in the fall of 2005. It would be the lone title reign in the late Superstar’s WWE career.

13 Randy Orton’s Epic Survivor Series Run

Fans who revisit Survivor Series shows from the early to mid 2000s may be struck by just how hard WWE pushed Randy Orton. The guy was not only in the main event for three years straight from 2003 to 2005, and not only on the winning team each time out, but the sole survivor in all three appearances.

WWE never made too big a deal of this impressive stretch, in part for how radically Orton’s character changed across this short span. In 2003, he was an arrogant young heel and Eric Bischoff’s hired gun to help take down Steve Austin’s team for control of RAW. In 2004, he was the underdog face, leading a younger team against Triple H and Evolution for short term control of RAW. Finally, in 2005, he was a heel representing SmackDown against a team of RAW all-stars.

12 Braun Strowman: First Man To Win A Royal Rumble And MITB In Same Year And Not Win A World Title

Since 1992, winning the Royal Rumble has meant either winning the title itself or getting a title shot at WrestleMania. The Rumble has translated less directly to world title wins in the last decade or so, supplanted by Money in the Bank as the best rate-of-return gimmick match win to yield a title.

Prior to 2018, only one man had won a Money in the Bank briefcase and a Royal Rumble in the same year. It was Alberto Del Rio, who came up short in his Rumble-earned ‘Mania title shot, but made good on his cash-in to pick up the WWE Championship at SummerSlam. Braun Strowman followed in Del Rio’s footsteps, winning not the traditional Rumble, but the 50-man Greatest Royal Rumble this spring, and Money in the Bank over the summer. Despite multiple title shots, he still hasn’t captured a world championship.

11 RAW Didn't Really Sweep Survivor Series This Year

This year’s Survivor Series was centered on competition between the RAW and SmackDown brands, and told the unconventional story of not a heated back and forth competition, but rather RAW dominating as it swept all inter-branded PPV matches.

There was, however, a match between the two brands’ tag teams on the pre-show, for which New Day and The Usos survived to pick up a win for SmackDown. There has been a lot of speculation suggesting that the match wasn’t supposed to go down this way, or was clumsily moved to the pre-show at the last minute purely to give the illusion of a RAW sweep. In any event, this one win for the blue brand muddied the stat line for the night, and the story WWE was pushing of RAW sweeping the action.

10 Edge’s Impressive WrestleMania Streak And How It Ended

Starting around WrestleMania X-Seven and moving forward, WWE made an increasingly big deal of The Undertaker’s undefeated streak at WrestleMania. The streak would become a gimmick and PPV selling point all its own—a major point of intrigue, particularly for those years when the streak genuinely looked as though it were in danger.

Quietly, Edge enjoyed his own undefeated streak at ‘Mania in midst of The Deadman’s run. The Rated R Superstar went unbeaten in his first six outings, which may have gone less noticed for the first two happening in tag team matches, and carrying on in the mid-card for a bit.

Edge’s streak ended when he didn’t win a Money in the Bank Ladder Match at WrestleMania 23, and he more concretely lost the following year at the hands of The Undertaker himself.

9 Bo Dallas Completed A Family Title Trifecta

When The B-Team defeated Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt for the Raw Tag Team Championships, it seemed pretty unremarkable. Neither team was particularly celebrated, and the general sense was that WWE was biding time with the tag belts until the division was ready for bigger things.

However, in Bo Dallas capturing the tag titles with Curtis Axel, he actually completed an unusual feat. His real life brother, Wyatt, had held the titles with Hardy (in addition to the SmackDown titles earlier on with Luke Harper, and their real life father Mike Rotunda had held the tag titles too with Barry Windham and later Ted DiBiase (in the role of IRS, to form Money Inc.). WWE doesn’t acknowledge this family trifecta mostly because they’re three such different characters, difficult to draw links between for the sake of storytelling.

8 CM Punk’s Year Plus With The WWE Championship

From late 2011 into early 2013, CM Punk held the WWE Championship for 434 days. That’s an impressive mark by any standard, and the longest reign since Hulk Hogan’s first title run that started nearly two decades earlier.

WWE wasn’t shy about touting Punk’s accomplishment as it was happening. Naturally, though, the company now avoids the topic given its strained relationship with the Straight Edge Superstar. Some fans have gone so far as to suggest that recent year-plus world title reigns for Brock Lesnar and AJ Styles were directly intended to diminish the magnitude of Punk’s accomplishment.

7 Brock Lesnar Can’t Even Pretend To Meet The 30-Day Defense Rule

WWE has long held that its champions must defend their titles at least once every thirty days to remain valid champions. The company has bent this rule from time to time to accommodate stars who need time away for injuries, filming movies, or personal reasons, but have also used it as an occasional plot device, or otherwise a reason to take a title off of someone.

While Brock Lesnar isn’t the first champion to bypass the 30 day defense rule, he is the first to so brazenly and repeatedly ignore it, often going two months or more between defenses throughout his three world title reigns from the last five years. WWE simply hasn’t mentioned a 30 day rule when Lesnar is in the title mix.

6 Lawrence Taylor Is The Earliest WrestleMania Main Event Winner Not To Go In The Hall Of Fame

Induction into the WWE Hall of Fame is a largely arbitrary distinction, based on the discretion of Vince McMahon, with input from a small handful of close advisers. Still, the Hall has a pretty good record of honoring the biggest stars in WWE history, and wrestling more broadly, particularly as the years have gone by.

Most WrestleMania main eventers have found their way into the Hall, and that’s all the more true of the main event winners. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of the wrestlers who won the last match of the biggest show of the year are in the Hall. Looking back through the history of the event, Lawrence Taylor is the earliest main event winner not to go in, and the closest to follow him are guys like The Undertaker and Triple H who still wrestle part time.

5 Baron Corbin And Braun Strowman Are The First Back-To-Back Money In The Bank Cash-In Failures

Money in the Bank has an outstanding track record of producing world champions. That’s logical enough, given the rule that the one with the briefcase can create their own title opportunity whenever they want.

John Cena was the first main to fail in his cash-in, and it was clear enough WWE recognized him as bullet proof enough to weather that blow. From there, Damien Sandow also fell short, which made sense too given he was never really set up as world champion material.

It’s more surprising that Baron Corbin, and all the more so Braun Strowman failed in their cash-ins given they’re up and comers WWE seemed to have big plans for. Most surprising of all, for the first time ever, back to back briefcase holders have failed in their cash-ins. Naturally, WWE isn’t drawing attention to this point, as it would risk seriously undercutting both men’s credibility.

4 Sting Never Won A Singles Or PPV Match In WWE

Sting is an all time great legend of wrestling. After years of by and large declining to recognize his legacy, the WWE openly embraced The Icon when he signed on to end his in ring career with them and accept a Hall of Fame induction.

WWE does not acknowledge the awkward reality, however, that for Sting’s months as an active wrestler for WWE he never won a PPV match, or even one singles match. He did the honors for both Triple H and Seth Rollins, and the one victory he did collect came in a tag team match on RAW.

3 Rey Mysterio Is The Most Recent Superstar To Convert A Royal Rumble Win Into His First World Championship

One of the most traditional journeys for a top face to undergo in WWE is to win the Royal Rumble and go on to win his first world title at WrestleMania. It has been a story WWE told time and again since the Rumble started having title or title shot ramifications in 1992. No lesser stars than Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, and Batista saw that journey through, and in doing so contributed greatly to the gravity of the Rumble match as one of WWE’s most storied institutions.

However, no one has actually followed this path since 2006 when Rey Mysterio won the Rumble and then the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 22. In the years to follow we have seen main event mainstays use Rumble victories to return to the title picture for ‘Mania, and winners who came up short in their title matches, like Shinsuke Nakamura this past year.

2 Triple H Holds The Record For Most WrestleMania Losses

Triple H tends to get a lot of flack from his critics for using his stroke within WWE to win more than he should, including maligned wins at a WrestleManias 2000, XIX, and 31. However, it’s interesting to note that The Game has actually been more giving than many fans might expect, especially at WrestleMania.

Hunter has lost more WrestleMania matches than anyone in history—a testament to both his longevity and willingness to put over others. The list of performers to beat The Game includes The Ultimate Warrior, The Undertaker, John Cena, Batista, Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Ronda Rousey, and Kurt Angle.

1 Paul Heyman: Manager Of World Champions