Thursday, May 28, 2020

Ranking Heel WWF Champions-"Macho Man" Randy Savage


             

            I debated on whether to include the title reign of Randy Savage considering he spent the majority of it as a babyface.  However, it gave me a chance to compare and contrast both his babyface and heel phases and calculate some interesting data results.  Concentrating more on the heel phase, Savage won 96% of his matches, with 40% being clean wins.  His clean wins were nearly double that of the Iron Sheik and Billy Graham, and 10% more than Ivan Koloff.  Savage’s overall winning percentage was at least 20% more than all three of the previous entrants in this series.  One factor could certainly be that he spent the majority of his entire reign as a babyface and his transition to heel did not lead to any major booking formula changes.  One could argue his momentum as a babyface champion played a factor in his success as a heel champion.
            As a babyface, Savage worked with Ted Dibiase often, with matches that winded down around September 1988.  Then, Savage worked with Andre the Giant with disqualification wins and no-contests.  Besides Andre he wrestled upcoming mid-card acts such as Bad News Brown, Rick Rude, and Haku.  Bare in mind, the WWF was running multiple sects of house shows with various rosters, or Savage may have had stronger opponents, or at least more variation.  After his heel turn, he only won clean against Bad News Brown, and won against the Ultimate Warrior in count-out victories.


TOTAL MATCHES (babyface and heel)-169
TOTAL WINS-135 (80%)
TOTAL CLEAN WINS-83 (61%)
TOTAL NON-CLEAN WINS-52 (39% of wins, 31% of total matches)
TOTAL LOSSES-17 (10%)
TOTAL CLEAN LOSSES-1 (6% of losses, 6% of total matches)
TOTAL NO-CONTESTS-17 (10%)

Total Babyface Matches (Before and including February 3, 1989 tag team match where he turned heel)-143 (85% of total matches)
Total Wins-110 (77% of face wins, 65% of total matches)
Total Clean Wins-73 (66% of face wins, 54% of total wins)
Total Non-Clean Wins-37 (34% of faces wins, 27% of total wins)
Total Losses-16 (11% of face matches, 9% of total matches)
Total Clean Losses-0
Total No-Contests-17 (12% of face matches, 10% of total matches)

Total Heel Matches-26 (15% of total matches)
Total Wins-25 (96% of heel matches, 19% of total wins)
Total Clean Wins-10 (40% of heel wins, 7% of total wins)
Total Non-Clean Wins-15 (60% of heel wins, 11% of total wins)
Total Losses-1 (4% of heel matches, 6% of total matches)
Total Clean Losses-1 (same as above number)
Total No-Contests-0
Steve Viglio
stevesgraps@yahoo.com

Friday, May 22, 2020

Ranking heel WWE Champions #3-The Iron Sheik




The Iron Sheik has certainly proven to be a cult favorite over the last fifteen years due to his outlandish behavior.  Using Cage Match and The History of WWE for results, the Iron Sheik had twenty-eight total matches for the WWE World title, first beating Bob Backlund at Madison Square Garden on December 26, 1983.  He went on to lose the belt to Hulk Hogan in the same venue on January 28, 1984, beginning Hogan’s ground-breaking reign as WWE champion as the company was nationalizing their product.
            For his clean wins, he mostly beat job guys such as Ken Jugan, Sal Bellomo, and John Callahan.  He beat “Chief” Jay Strongbow on December 27, 1983, which was not clean, and proceeded to beat him several more times throughout his reign.  The results I have for those wins do not list the finish and it is possible they shared the same finish as the December 27 match, and I did not include those in his clean win total.  He never lost clean, excluding his loss to Hogan to end his reign, so his reign has that as a strength I guess.  He lost via disqualification two times to Bob Backlund and once to Ivan Pitski.  Here are the overall stats and percentages for his reign…

28 total matches
21 Overall wins-75%
10 Clean wins-36%
5 non-clean wins-18%
4 Losses-14%
2 Draws-7%
1 Unknown finish against Ivan Putski on January 15, 1984

            Comparing Sheik to Ivan Koloff and Billy Graham, he ranks number three, just looking at overall clean wins.  Overall, the Iron Sheik lacked any tangible and credible wins, and seems to compare well to Ivan Koloff’s.

            Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik won the WWE tag belts at WrestleMania I on March 31, 1985 but they did not have a particularly good run.  They lost to Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo numerous times, including singles losses to both guys for Sheik.  They only won against job guys and one sole win against the British Bulldogs, before losing the belts to Windham and Rotundo in three minutes on June 17, 1985.  On a side-note, Sheik won the Most Underrated Wrestler award in the Observer for 1980.

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Ranking the heel WWE champions #2-Superstar Billy Graham


                “Superstar” Billy Graham’s WWWF title run began on April 30, 1977, in Baltimore, MD, with a non-clean win over Bruno Sammartino.  Graham was very much ahead of his time with his character, charisma, presence, and promos, many of which were reminiscent of Muhammed Ali.  Graham’s career story was that of vast untapped potential in that Vince McMahon Sr. decided to Bob Backlund the highlight of the WWWF over him.  Graham would return to the WWWF after this run, on two occasions but never holding the championship again.  Alongside the likes of Bruno, Bob Backlund, Pedro Morales, and Hulk Hogan, Graham was a record setter for sell-outs at Madison Square Garden.  He sold out MSG numerous times during this run, along with his return in the 80’s working with Bob Backlund, and even in his final run in the late 80’s.  On October 16, 1987, as the headliners, Graham and Butch Reed sold out the Garden for a cage match that Graham won.  Here are his championship reign stats…


Total matches-165
Overall wins-65%
Clean wins-47%
Non-clean wins-18%
Overall losses-27%
No Contests/Draws-5%
Tag Team matches-2%


                When compared to Ivan Koloff, Graham’s numbers are not far off, as Ivan has a higher overall winning percentage but slightly less clean wins.  Koloff had a considerably better loss percentage but of course, he had far less total matches in his reign.  Graham fought a diverse collection of wrestlers, and he travelled outside of the WWWF territory as champion, to places like Florida, Japan, and Detroit.  The most amount of his clean wins came over Larry Zbyszko (11), Tony Garea (12), and “Chief” Jay Strongbow (14).  Against Bruno Sammartino, he only won clean once, in a cage match,  once in non-clean fights, two losses, and three no contests.  In typical McMahon fashion, Bruno was still kept strong despite not being champion.



                Graham’s biggest rival was against Dusty Rhodes, as he lost twelve total times, and only won once.  However, the vast majority of those losses were in Florida for Championship Wrestling from Florida and in fact, Graham lost most of his matches that he wrestled in Florida.  His other high collected losses came from Bob Backlund, Strongbow, and Ivan Putski, with most being via count-out or disqualification.  Graham also wrestled some unique opponents during his reign, such as Chavo Guerrero (in a loss), Raymond Rougeau, Strong Kobayashi, Edouard Carpentier, and Riki Choshu.  Graham lost the title to Bob Backlund on February 20, 1978, in New York City.  If one was looking strictly at clean wins, “Superstar” Billy Graham holds the top spot for now but he also holds the top loss count.  It would be a cliché to say that Graham was a pioneer in wrestling and certainly paved the way for the modern wrestling landscape.
                It should be mentioned that the previous heel champion, Stan Stasiak, failed to hold the title for at least six matches, and did not qualify for this project.  If you have questions or suggestions, follow me on Twitter @stevesgraps, or email me at stevesgraps@yahoo.com