Wrestlers With The Most World Titles (Across All Major Federations)
Is 16 the real record?
For the purpose of this list, we will only take into account the three major wrestling countries: the USA, Japan and Mexico.
For the US, every world title defended in a major federation's history will be considered. These are WWE, NWA, WCW, ECW (the promotion, not the WWE brand), Impact Wrestling, AEW and AWA. Ring Of Honor and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla also make the cut as they're arguably the two most prestigious American indie promotions, and because a large part of their champions went on to win world titles in major federations.
For Japan, we take into account world titles from the three biggest active federations (NJPW, AJPW and NOAH) as well as from the defunct IWA. We'll also consider two of the titles that make AJPW's Triple Crown as world titles, namely the PWF and NWA International championships, due to their status as world titles in the '70s and '80s.
In the case of Mexico, for the sake of coherence we'll only consider the heavyweight titles of the three major promotions - CMLL, AAA and UWA - even if the lower weight divisions are equally prestigious in Lucha Libre.
41. Steve Austin (6)
6 WWE Championships
After that rather tedious introduction, nothing like the sound of shattering glass to wake you up. 'The Rattlesnake' needs no introduction. World-class matches inside the ring, revolutionary promos outside of it, he stands as one of the greatest and most important stars in the history of the business. He spent six years at the top (from 1997 to 2003) and won six world titles. One can only imagine what could've happened if it wasn't for a botched piledriver.
Strangely, Austin's fame never fully transferred outside of the wrestling bubble. Your parents probably know who Dwayne Johnson and John Cena are, will be familiar with the name of Hulk Hogan ("oh yeah, the wrestler guy in Rocky III?"), but will have never heard of one Stone Cold Steve Austin. That's odd because, inside of the wrestling bubble, the simple sound of shattering glass sends fans into a frenzy.