Hello, WWE fans! As we continue to witness the prolonged absence of the undisputed WWE Universal Champion from the SmackDown scene, I’ve decided to delve into the hidden statistics that underpin the dominance of our Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns.
7
This is how many times Roman Reigns has defended the title in 2023. From those seven defenses, four happened on premium live events, while the other three (twice against Rey Mysterio and once against Sami Zayn) could only be seen on non-televised live events. As we head into October, this means fans have had to wait an average of 68 days between defenses.
6
Is the number of times Roman Reigns has wrestled a match on air this year. Bump it to nine for non-televised live events. Of course, they all happened in the main event of each show.
30
Taking the overall match lengths and dividing them by six gives us an average time of 30 minutes. So, when Reigns has a match, he has plenty of time, although many fans would say half of it is spent playing to the crowd over getting physical.
0
Not only has Roman Reigns gone without defending the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship on SmackDown (or RAW) for all of 2023, but I can also say that he hasn’t worked any TV matches.
The only shows Roman Reigns has wrestled on are premium live events and non-televised events. The Tribal Chief has been around to cut promos and further storylines, but it’s crazy to know that he hasn’t worked a match on SmackDown since December 30, 2022 when he and Sami Zayn lost a tag team match to John Cena & Kevin Owens.
2
Roman Reigns has a definite weakness, and it comes in the form of traditional two-on-two tag team matches.
The last time he won this form of tag match was with Jey Uso against King Corbin & Sheamus in a Street Fight way back on September 18, 2020. That’s over three years ago! Six-man tags are another story, though. He had a lot of success teaming with The Usos throughout 2021 and 2022 on non-televised live events.
15
This number represents the amount of months since Roman Reigns last defended the title on a regular episode of SmackDown or RAW. He fought Riddle on June 17, 2022. Before that, we have to go back to December 3, 2021, when he retained against Sami Zayn by submission on SmackDown. Roman Reigns has never defended the title on Monday Night RAW.
57
As of October 1st, this number represents the days Roman Reigns has gone without defending the title since retaining against Jey Uso at SummerSlam. However, this is not the longest he has gone without defending this year.
There were 76 days between the Cody Rhodes encounter at WrestleMania and the non-televised Rey Mysterio match. If we’re only including televised, that number greatly increases to 125 days because Reigns did not defend anytime between WrestleMania and SummerSlam. This gap is longer than Ric Flair (118), Big E (110), and Chris Jericho’s (98) WWE Championship reigns.
I’m not sure if this is a record, but if it isn’t, the only other WWE Superstar who would have it is Brock Lesnar, who is well-known for his part-time status. If anyone is interested to know this, let me know, and I’ll check it out tomorrow.
Conclusion
Speaking of ‘The Beast’, in the past, Roman Reigns would insult his part-time status. Essentially, WWE has built Roman Reigns into a special attraction that they roll out to increase ticket sales on premium live events, very much like they previously achieved with Brock Lesnar.
If any fan of WWE wants to see Roman Reigns in a match, they can only do so by going to a major show. And that is smart business, however, it leaves a void on SmackDown, as its biggest star rarely shows up. And when he does, it’s mostly just to talk. Roman Reigns was already heading in this direction in 2022, but 2023 has seen his part-time status become more profound. Sure, it gives extra airtime to other superstars, but it also makes me wonder whether TV ratings are suffering while Roman Reigns remains absent for most of the year.
The current generation of WWE Superstars would greatly benefit from him being around, but until Roman Reigns is finally usurped, this is the state of WWE. Business is going well, and there is no reason to change the philosophy for the foreseeable. Please let me know what you think about these numbers behind Roman Reigns’ dominant title reign in the comments. Thank you.
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