Is Charlotte Flair the most overpushed WWE wrestler of the century?

[Log]

Of course Charlotte has to lose some championships.  Can't break dad's record without losing a few.

That makes me think.  Kayfabe-wise, Bruno being a 2-time champ, but holding it for 12 and 4 years is way more impressive than being a 16-time champ.

[FMKK]

10 hours ago, rovert said:

I assume Rhea finally overcomes and beats Charlotte at Summerslam for the Raw title. Bryan Alvarez has the same idea as me. 

It's typical of the WWE brain rot they've had since Bryan in 2013/14 that Rhea has getting nicely over and then the company decided to strap the rocket to her by....having her lose all her big matches.

[joeg]

Miz. Hands down. For two years he was pushed as the top heel over CM Punk and Randy Orton which is fucking mind boggling. 

Charlotte is one of the two or three most talented women they have so her being pushed as such is perfectly fine. To me its more a matter of how poorly they've under promoted some of the other talented women they have rather than over pushed Charlotte. 

[NintendoLogic]

16 hours ago, rovert said:

I assume Rhea finally overcomes and beats Charlotte at Summerslam for the Raw title. Bryan Alvarez has the same idea as me. 

Bryan also said that Charlotte being shoehorned into the Mania main event was no big deal because we'd be getting a Becky/Ronda singles match at the next PPV for sure. The blind spot Dave and Bryan have for Charlotte is pretty infuriating.

[KawadaSmile]

She consistently gets one up over Asuka. It was twice just today, complete with posing with the Raw belt.

It's insane.

[Jmare007]

Even if Ripley beats her at Summerslam for the RAW belt, will it be worth it? If there's one thing WWE can't do for shit is executing long term plans, even if they make some sort of sense. Will Rhea be able to survive being booked like shit for 2 more months for her W to feel important? This company hasn't earned any benefit of the doubt when it comes to shit like this so yeah, let people be pissed *shrugs*

[MoS]

On 6/8/2020 at 4:03 PM, rovert said:

I assume Rhea finally overcomes and beats Charlotte at Summerslam for the Raw title. Bryan Alvarez has the same idea as me. 

History has shown that faces getting beaten fair and square again and again before winning their big one just does not work well. Jeff Hardy had genuine potential to become a big draw, but he was beaten multiple times and was never the same. In his case, it was probably a good decision because of his outside-the-ring issues, but that's not booking that turns out good. 

I am not saying that isn't the plan, but I don't think it's a good plan. The execution was certainly not good. It also puts an asterisk next to Shirai's win, cuz you can argue she stole that win. 

[Superstar Sleeze]

On 6/8/2020 at 3:30 PM, Log said:

Of course Charlotte has to lose some championships.  Can't break dad's record without losing a few.

That makes me think.  Kayfabe-wise, Bruno being a 2-time champ, but holding it for 12 and 4 years is way more impressive than being a 16-time champ.

To be fair to Flair, he held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship for 3,116 days second only to Lou Thesz, 501 days as WCW World Champion and  118 days as WWF Champion for a total of 3,735 days as World Champion which is 10 years collectively as the Champion. I dont know where you got Bruno's 12 year run from, I think it was just 8 years '63-71. Bruno is at 4040 days, which puts him at less than a year ahead of Flair. Thesz is at 3,749 days as National Wrestling Alliance World Champion before that he was the National Wrestling Association World Champion for 835 days for a total of 4,584 days. Hogan is at 3,362 days as Champ (I forgot how lengthy his WCW Title reigns were). Ed "Strangler" Lewis is at 3,073 days. It is possible that Jim Londos is also over 3000 days if you add up the different versions of the World Championship he held. I forgot the AWA and Verne!

Verne Gagne - 4,677 days (if Thesz/NWA wont put me over, I will start my own promotion and break his fucking record :P)

Lou Thesz - 4,584 days

Bruno Sammartino - 4,040 days

Ric Flair - 3,735 days

Hulk Hogan - 3,362 days

Ed "Strangler" Lewis - 3,073 days

Nick Bockwinkel - 2,990 days (10 days shy of 3000, I was looking for any minor World Championship he won, but nada. Still impressive)

I know they blabber on and on about Flair's 16 reigns, but these are not cup of coffee reigns Flair had. There were some meaty reigns in there. 

[C.S.]

Wrestling Inc.: Charlotte Flair Responds To People Who Say She's Overexposed

 

[Log]

8 hours ago, Superstar Sleeze said:

I know they blabber on and on about Flair's 16 reigns, but these are not cup of coffee reigns Flair had. There were some meaty reigns in there. 

I did some bad math there with Bruno. I think I totaled his reigns in my head and put that as the first one. 
 

Anyway, I just meant that in wrestling, we seem to over-value how many times someone holds a belt as opposed to the quality of the reign. I mean, hasn’t the Miz held the IC title like 10 times? Savage held it once and his reign was way more memorable. Name one thing interesting about any of Dolph Zigglers many, many title reigns. 
 

I don’t mean to be the old man yelling at clouds, but title reigns used to mean something. Once they started getting hot-shotted in the late 90’s, they started to mean less. I didn’t mean my original post as any sort of knock on Flair. I just meant that his 16 titles gets held up as the pinnacle of achievement in wrestling. Wouldn’t a dude being undefeated for like 10 years be more impressive?
 

 

[El-P]

That's the old "That means you've lost it 16 times ! I will never lose the title !" promo spot.

Yeah, there's a reason the IWGP title means so much.

[NintendoLogic]

In real combat sports, the records that matter are title reign length and number of successful defenses. Of course, the old NWA champions probably had several hundred defenses during their reigns.

Speaking of fake records, remember when Charlotte being undefeated on PPV was a thing? It was especially ludicrous because she lost title matches on Raw all the time.

[SteveJRogers]

On 6/10/2020 at 8:54 AM, NintendoLogic said:

Speaking of fake records, remember when Charlotte being undefeated on PPV was a thing? It was especially ludicrous because she lost title matches on Raw all the time.

FWIW in “on the level” sports that’s akin to overhyping a player‘a ranking in all-time great discussions based on his/her performance in the postseason and “big games.”

Yeah I know you can’t bring the same logic into pro-wrestling storytelling, but I’m sure that was their “logic” in making that a thing.

And also, FWIW, are you suggesting that Undertaker’s Wrestlemania “undefeated streak” was one of the most silliest and most overrated things in wrestling history?  

Never mind the dreck Taker had to deal with before it became “special” and starting with the HBK matches it was one of a handful of matches he’d work in the calendar year.  But it ended up being a central part of his gimmick for over a decade.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Not just the central part of his gimmick, it was the central part of the WrestleMania gimmick from 2008-2014. Obviously, there were other selling points to Mania, but Taker's streak was always at least #2. 

[SteveJRogers]

BTW, re-reading my post made me wonder how the opposite would go well as a storyline for a wrestler.  Where in a lead up to a match his/her failures at a PPV are spotlighted.

Yeah that was the point of Big Show vs Cody at WrestleMania, and often it’s just a past singular, or series of matches against a specific opponent get brought up in match hype.  Not to mention putting someone over is generally considered a good thing from a non-kayfabe standpoint.  But usually win-loss records are only stated as “fascinating facts” in non-storyline or hype package situations.  And generally sub .500 records are used to gently mock, such as Triple H at WrestleMania.

IDK, I’m probably overthinking with the endless amount of “do rings matter towards an athlete’s greatness” debates in team sports and trying too hard to apply it to a storyline driven, pre-determined combat sport. *rolls eyes*

[NintendoLogic]

2 hours ago, SteveJRogers said:

FWIW in “on the level” sports that’s akin to overhyping a player‘a ranking in all-time great discussions based on his/her performance in the postseason and “big games.”

Yeah I know you can’t bring the same logic into pro-wrestling storytelling, but I’m sure that was their “logic” in making that a thing.

The problem with this logic is that she wasn't just losing meaningless "regular season" matches. Like, it's one thing to get pinned in a tag match and then win at the PPV. But she was losing actual title matches on Raw a good amount of the time.

[FMKK]

24 minutes ago, SteveJRogers said:

BTW, re-reading my post made me wonder how the opposite would go well as a storyline for a wrestler.  Where in a lead up to a match his/her failures at a PPV are spotlighted.

Yeah that was the point of Big Show vs Cody at WrestleMania, and often it’s just a past singular, or series of matches against a specific opponent get brought up in match hype.  Not to mention putting someone over is generally considered a good thing from a non-kayfabe standpoint.  But usually win-loss records are only stated as “fascinating facts” in non-storyline or hype package situations.  And generally sub .500 records are used to gently mock, such as Triple H at WrestleMania.

IDK, I’m probably overthinking with the endless amount of “do rings matter towards an athlete’s greatness” debates in team sports and trying too hard to apply it to a storyline driven, pre-determined combat sport. *rolls eyes*

I mean, that's basically Hirooki Goto's gimmick at this point. He gets his big wins and does well enough but he never gets over the hump in the big one and he gets mocked for it. He still seems to be over with the Japanese fans though. You do see some Western fans work themselves into a shoot and think that he sucks because his gimmick is that he's a choker though.

[KawadaSmile]

 

 

Oh my god

[El-P]

The title almost read like a joke. I had to click on the link to be sure it wasn't some parodic website. 

[SmoothS]

Well, at least she's talented, has the work ethic, and has star presence. She wants to be on RAW, SmackDown, & NXT (almost like a modern day version of her father working all over the territories when he was the last great touring NWA World Champion). She's cool with me. If she did not have the talent, work ethic, or presence, then I would have a major problem. Because she would bring nothing to the table.

[sek69]

From reading various interviews it seems like she's trying to do as much as possible as fast as she can to make up for getting a late start in wrestling. Like how Ric started getting insecure when bookers tried to push him down the card when he (rightly) felt he had more to give, she seems to have some insecurities about coming in to the business.