Ryback’s Reign Rolls On

Ryback has held the Unofficial WWE Championship for the past 70 days, which is now in the top 30 longest reigns of all time. Now this doesn’t sound all that impressive but when you consider the nature of the UWWEC and that there have been over 400 reigns it really is a great feat. The way that the UWWEC is held and defended makes any reign that goes past 50 days one to remember and considering that this is only Ryback’s second reign as champion and that his first reign went 65 days, it suggests something about the way that he is booked. The great thing about the UWWEC is that not losing clean doesn’t necessarily mean you will have a long reign because the title can be lost via any decision. This means Ryback has not lost – not even via disqualification or count-out for the past 70 days at any event.

Ryback won the title from CM Punk at a house show in LA on January 18 earlier this year. Since then he has had plenty of title defences against some of the less dominant members of the WWE locker-room but has also had multiple wins over the United States Champion Antonio Cesaro and Dolph Ziggler on and off television. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing in this time for Ryback away from the title. He was eliminated by John Cena in the Royal Rumble and has been apart of losing teams against The Shield (of course, the UWWEC is only defended in one-on-one matches).

His closest encounter to losing the title came against Mark Henry when the match ended in a double count-out in which case the title remains with Ryback. With every day that he keeps the title it is looking more and more likely that his match with Henry at Wrestlemania 29 will be for the Unofficial WWE Championship, something that has only happened on 8 occasions in the past. This list includes famous matches such as the Iron Man Match from Wrestlemania XII, the Wrestlemania X-7 match between The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin for the WWF Championship, two of The Undertaker’s streak matches, and of course Taka Michinoku vs Aguila for the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania 14. Having said all that, with Wrestlemania still over a week-and-a-half away, this is far from a foregone conclusion. In the world of the Unofficial WWE Championship, 9 days can be an eternity.

Welcome to the Home of the Unofficial WWE Championship

You might be asking yourself how you got here. You might be wide awake at 2 in the morning clicking on random blog posts about professional wrestling. You might have seen an outrageous post on Twitter (@UWWEC) that you just had to follow up. You may be a member of a wrestling message board and saw my obnoxiously over-sized signature that you couldn’t ignore. You may recognise this idea from the Unofficial Football World Championships and came over to complain. However you got here – I thank you.

This is a project that I’ve had floating around for about a year. Ever since I was first introduced to the idea via international football, I really thought it was an interesting concept and I was surprised it wasn’t bigger. As a wrestling fan, it’s not just enough to follow the product. You have to discuss it with others, follow your favourite wrestlers on Twitter, occasionally complain to them, write about it, post a video about it, complain some more, etc. Being a wrestling fan is a full time job and I created this blog so that I could cement my place in the exciting world of professional wrestling.

Please don’t hesitate to ask me any question, inquire further into the concept, send me a tweet, praise my work or offer me advice to improve this idea. I’m happy to answer any question related or not related to the Unofficial WWE Championship as best I can. Look around and I hope you see something that makes you happy as a wrestling fan – after all, that’s exactly what I am.

@UWWEC