I've really been way too busy in my everyday life to spend a lot of time thinking about stuff like this, but it occured to me earlier today that, as of this writing on January 24th 2013, Kevin Steen has had more successful defenses of the ROH World Title than any champion since Nigel McGuinness in 2007-09. In fact, only five former champions have more title defenses than he currently boasts, and with last year's running tally of where CM Punk falls in terms of longest-reigning WWE Champions in history, I thought it would be fun to look at some stats and play the same game with Kevin Steen and the ROH World Title.
So as I said, he's currently sixth in line in terms of most successful defenses of the ROH World Title with 14. Making it to fifth shouldn't be too much trouble, as he only needs three more to pass Austin Aries' first reign (16). Getting to fourth isn't out of the realm of possibility either, as he would only need a few more wins to beat out Takeshi Morishima's 20 successful defenses.
From there on out it gets a little tougher. Currently in third place is Samoa Joe with 29 successful defenses, and beating his number would mean that Steen would need to hold the title for at least another nine or ten months. It's not out of the realm of possibility, but it's obviously a lot to expect someone to hold a title for a year and a half in any company. Even though ROH has had extraordinarily long-reigning champions in years past, it's not a given that anyone will hold the title much longer than the 8-10 month mark.
Getting to first place will mean that Steen will need to nearly triple his current tally to top Nigel McGuinness and Bryan Danielson, who are tied for first with 38 defenses apiece. Getting to that number means that Steen would need to hold the title for over two years with the number of shows ROH currently runs, and although it's technically possible, it seems unlikely enough that I don't see how they can realistically do it.
Even if Steen only makes it to third or fourth, that would put him in the same company as the three greatest champions ROH ever had, and is certainly something to be proud of. But now let's look at the other side of the story, which is where Steen lands in terms of the actual length of time he's held the title.
Samoa Joe is obviously the longest reigning champion and probably always will be, having run up an astounding 21 months (or 645 days) as champion in 2003-04. After Joe is Nigel McGuinness at 545 days, Bryan Danielson at 462 days, and then Davey Richards at 321 days.
Steen currently stands at 257 days, just recently putting him past Takeshi Morishima (231 days) and making him the fifth longest reigning ROH Champion in history. I think holding it for four more months to pass Richards and become the fourth longest reigning champion is well within reach, but then he'd need to go another three months to beat Danielson, three more on top of that to surpass Nigel, and three more to beat Joe. In other words, he'd still need to be champion this time next year and get past his defense at the 12th Anniversary Show to become longest reigning champion.
Here's one I think should be interesting: how many other ROH World Champions (future and former) has Steen successfully defended the title against in relation to everyone else? If we leave out the match where they won the title (for obvious reasons), then Steen is currently sitting in a four way tie with Tyler Black, Jerry Lynn, and Samoa Joe, who each have successfuly defenses against four other champions. Above them is another tie between Austin Aries' second reign, Morishima, and Danielson, who each have five defenses against other champions. Sitting all the way at the top are Aries' first reign and Nigel, who each successfully defended against six other ROH World Champions.
I guess there's always a chance that Low Ki or Xavier could make a one night return to put Steen over, or Nigel could come out of retirement for one night to face Steen. However, given that those are all highly unlikely scenarios and every other former champion is currently under contract somewhere else, I don't think Steen's likely to rise any higher up on that list anytime soon.
On the other hand, if you knock out future champions and just include former champions, then Steen actually tops the list since being the current champion means that all four of the champions he defeated (Edwards, Richards, Strong, and Homicide) were former champions. Bryan Danielson is the only other ROH Champion with more than two defenses against former champions, with wins over Aries, Xavier, and Joe during his reign.
There's obviously a lot of different angles you can look at this from, but any way you slice it, it's pretty clear that Steen is already one of the most statistically successful ROH World Champions in history. He's still got enough life in his reign that I think it's pretty likely he'll improve his spot on a couple of those lists, but even as it stands right now, I think he's doing pretty good for someone who was on the outside looking in a little over a year ago.
I hope you enjoyed this look at Kevin Steen's title reign, and all feedback can be sent to stupwinsider@gmail.com.
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