10 Massively Dubious Wrestling Records
Even Scott Steiner is better at maths than Vince McMahon.
At Royal Rumble 2017, John Cena made history by purportedly tying Ric Flair's record of 16 World Heavyweight Titles. It's one much of the wrestling community is content to go along with. Even Flair himself has accepted it (publicly, at least).
But it's as much of a fabrication as the wrestling industry itself.
By any metric other than WWE's, Cena has a while to go yet. Flair lost the title in the Dominican Republic, to Jack Veneno, when the rabid hometown crowd simply decided it had happened. Flair, fearing a riot, called an audible and got the hell out of dodge. The switch did happen - the referee made the call, and the timekeeper rang the bell - but the NWA retconned it, as they were wont to do.
Flair's record is muddied yet further by abeyance, politics, and WCW's complex secession from the NWA. There is no definitive and objective history, and thus no definitive and objective number. Paradoxically, the only categorical fact in a head-scratching web of conjecture is that 16 is plainly incorrect.
"Alternative facts" are in vogue in this rotten time to be alive - but WWE coined "fake news" decades ago...
10. John Cena Has Never Given Up
On the subject of Cena, WWE insists that the man has never submitted throughout the course of its career. That record is another fabrication, designed to shift warehouse loads of fabric emblazoned with one of Cena's child-friendly slogans.
Cena tapped out to Kurt Angle's ankle lock at No Way Out 2004, in a Triple Threat match also involving the Big Show. It is available for all to see on the WWE Network. Just months earlier, he tapped out to Chris Benoit's Crippler Crossface on an episode of SmackDown. No Way Out 2004 wasn't the first time Angle forced him to submit; he also trapped him in the ankle lock at No Mercy 2003. Cena had yet to adopt his modern Hulk Hogan act, but he lived in the same skin. It wasn't as if it wasn't him.
Cena's mantra is a myth - an insult to the intelligence of the long-time fans the company isn't particularly interested in appeasing.
Regardless, it's just about true enough. It also remains the last untapped resource of putting over a new talent to an extent not seen since that hungry young whippersnapper Brock Lesnar was made famous by ending the Undertaker's WrestleMania streak. The man who makes Cena tap will be made, full stop.
Unless it's Roman Reigns.