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
