Champions of the 2010s. A Few Stats and Facts.

Since the decade is drawing to a close over the next 9 months, I thought we would reflect on the highs and lows of champions throughout the decade.
We've had some crazy good reigns and reigns we thought we crazy to have happen, but we can all agree that it's fun to look back at wrestling stats, because we're nerds. lol

Off the bat, there have only been 20 men to hold the Intercontinental Championship in the decade, with upwards of 40 reigns between them. #hotpotato
We saw the 127th IC Title Reign begin at the start of the decade as Kofi became the first person to win the title in the 2010s.
A break down of title changes by year:
2011:2
2012:6
2013:4
2014:8
2015:5
2016:5
2017:3
2018:5
2019:2 so far.

Here's another one to make you gouge your eyes out. Miz is now the 2nd most prolific Intercontinental Champion ever. His total time as champ has him at number 2 while Jericho is actually number sixteen for total time.

On a nicer note, the tag team titles gave several wrestlers chances to show their merit.
So the official lineage of the current Raw tag titles is seen as part of the lineage of the WWE tag team championships introduced in the first brand split in 02, meaning the inaugural champions were Angle and You know who. These titles become merge with the original tag titles, and so the first Tag Team Champions of the new decade are none other than Show-Miz. We saw 30 or so legitimate pairings win the titles minus Braun Strowman and a child, John Cena stuck with David Otunga and maybe two other reigns that were complete horse manure.

One fact I discovered that seemed really novel was the number of people who won the titles with multiple partners.
Cody Rhodes
Kofi Kingston
Kane
Curtis Axel/Michael Mcguill-do you really care how he spells it?
David Otunga
Seth Rollins
The Miz
Tyson Kidd
are all two-time champions with different partners.

Kofi is the best tag specialist of the decade with the titles with Evan Bourne, Ron Killings, and as part of the New Day.
On paper, Seth Rollins is second because he won the titles with both his shield brothers and the oddball run with Jordan, but we all know how well that went.
I feel like in terms of Tag Titles as a whole that Cesaro has been a sleeper success because he's a 6-time tag champion. That's not bad.

On to the Women's titles!
It turns out Naomi has the second longest run with the Smackdown women's title, which I think is good for her because she's a great talent and needs accolades to further get that point across. Obviously, the titles are really new so we're all really aware of every little detail that's happened, so I won't act as though there's much to "discover"

And on to my favorite title, the original WWE championship dating back to 1963.
It now stands as the oldest active title and oldest title overall in the company's history. It has been bequeathed to 49 wrestlers of varying levels of worthiness across 134 reigns. three of the most prolific title holders were further cemented in the top ten thanks to Cena, Orton and Triple H.
John Cena was the first champion of the decade with his victory at Elimination Chamber 2010. We only saw 12 people become first time WWE Champions in the decade, with Aj Styles holding it for the longest time of the new champions and Daniel Bryan having the most reigns of the first time title winners in the decade. Not to be confused with the guys who won the title but had won it in previous decades. Oh, and Triple H and Undertaker are the only active wrestler to win world titles in three different decades. If Cena can get just one world title in, like, 2022 (Plausible) then he'll be added.

Weird one off facts: Bret Hart is the oldest wrestler to win a title of any kind in the decade. Technically.
Rusev is the only 300 pounder to hold the US title in the decade.
Four Wrestlers won the US Title and go on to become a world champion in the decade. Miz, Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler, Dean Ambrose, More people won it after having held a world's championships. The list includes Cena, Rollins, Del Rio, Sheamus, Jack Swagger, Aj Styles, Jinder Mahal, and Jeff Hardy.


No, the reigns aren't just about the numbers, as someone that wishes title reigns were based on numbers of defense and not days I share that view, but this is the data we have and I for one really enjoy seeing how it all looks on paper at the end of the day. Feel free to add any stats on tidbits you found novel or noteworthy that aren't constantly repeated on RAW or Smackdown every week.