10 Wrestlers Who DOUBLED DOWN On Legendary Title Reigns

A legendary run as a pro wrestling champion in Japan carries a far greater weight than a legendary championship reign anywhere else, irrespective of the holder's star power, drawing ability, or match quality; for proof, scan Kenta Kobashi's 715-day and 113-day reigns, respectively, as GHC Heavyweight and Tag Team Champion.

Kobashi's deft demonstration of the King's Road style was in full use across a series of gruelling championship wars. Averaging a match length of 27 minutes and 37 seconds across his fourteen championship struggles, Kobashi was reaffirmed as a resilient worker whose ingenious arsenal helped establish the GHC Heavyweight Championship as a genuine piece of wrestling treasure, becoming the standard bearer for what a modernistic World Champion should be in the wake of a career-first title victory over Mitsuharu Misawa.

Although his GHC Tag Tag Team Championship run, alongside Tamon Honda, is more fondly remembered for the match in which they lost the titles - that being against the pairing of Hiroshi Tanahashi and Yuji Nagata - their two successful defences (vs. Shinya Makabe and Yoshihiro Takayama, and vs. Akira Taue and Daisuke Ikeda) are wholly worth scouring the Internet for. Once more, they're Kenta Kobashi at his stiff, slaughterous self.