How Charlotte Flair Is Beating Her Dad’s WWE Legacy

Ric Flair won the first of the 16 World Championships that WWE actually acknowledges (off the record, there were many more) when he defeated Dusty Rhodes on a Central States Wrestling show in September 1981. Highlighted by acclaimed defences against opponents as diverse as Jumbo Tsuruta and Kerry von Erich, that reign lasted a whopping 631 days.

Brilliantly, this is one day longer than the cumulative total for all nine of Charlotte's nine main roster reigns, though her total stretches to 888 days when including her first belt, the NXT Women's Championship, which was won in May 2014.

WWE's records exclude Ric's eighth NWA World Title reign and his first and third in WCW. Thus, according to company canon, he was a top champion for 3,375 days across his 16 runs. His average reign lasted 211 days compared to his daughter's 89. Ric's acknowledged title tilts were spread across close to 19 years; Charlotte's today, barely straddle five.

These numbers do a solid job of explaining the issue on their own, though concessions must be made. The average modern wrestling title reign is a lot shorter than those of the '80s. Dominant, multi-year runs were more common back then, making it unfair to point to the numbers and the numbers alone when pushing this argument - but the closer you look at Charlotte's résumé, the more it falls apart.

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