10 Longest Gaps Between WWE Title Defences

by John Bills

1. 175 Days - Trish Stratus (Women's)

Trish Stratus Champion
wwe.com

Trish was WWE Women's Champion on seven occasions,. Her penultimate championship reign lasted for well over a year, Trish holding the title for an impressive 448 days before losing it to Mickie James at WrestleMania 22. Those sorts of numbers are impressive on paper, but a closer looks tells a different story.

For 175 straight days (almost six months) during that reign, Trish failed to put the title on the line in any way. Trish vanquished the challenge of Christy Hemme at WrestleMania 21, but the belt wasn't up for grabs again until late September of that same year. Trish faced Victoria on that night, retaining the strap via DQ.

Things picked up for Trish over the next few months. She was able to defend the title at least once every two months until she eventually lost to Mickie. But for five months and 23 days, the WWE Women's Championship lay gathering dust.

Trish Stratus is often referred to as one of the great WWE Women's Champions, but the lack of competition and focused booked means that her title reigns tended to be fairly humdrum affairs. A 448 day reign as champion is fantastic, but failing to put that title on the line for 175 straight days during it is somewhat unacceptable.

Brock Lesnar's time off doesn't really look so bad now, does it?

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.