Wrestling Inc. Presents The Numbers Game: WWE's Most Diverse Title Lineage (1/10/23)
Welcome to The Numbers Game, a column about the cold, hard facts of the wrestling industry. Each edition will explore a particular topic in current or past professional wrestling entirely via the use of statistics. We're not dealing in opinion here — these are simply the numbers. What you make of them is up to you.
On Tuesday's episode of "WWE NXT," Oba Femi cashed in his championship contract he received by winning the Men's Breakout Tournament, defeating Dragon Lee to become the 18th "NXT" North American Champion. In doing so, Femi didn't just become the first NIL athlete to win championship gold in WWE — he also became part of a unique title lineage. Just one glance at the history of the North American title reveals that it's unlike any other title in WWE, and unlike the vast majority of titles in all of wrestling.
50% of all NXT North American Champions have been Black
Femi is now the 18th "NXT" North American Champion, but he's also the ninth Black "NXT" North American Champion, having been preceded by Ricochet, Velveteen Dream, Keith Lee, Leon Ruff, Swerve Strickland, Carmelo Hayes, Wes Lee, and Trick Williams. That means an even 50% of all titleholders have been Black, something you won't see in the lineages of pretty much any other title in a major televised wrestling promotion.
For example, only three of the 22 "NXT" Champions have been Black (13.6%) and only two of the 17 "NXT" Women's Champions (11.8%). If we look at main roster titles like the Intercontinental Championship and the WWE Championship, in both cases only four of the last 18 champions have been Black (22.2%), and AEW's numbers are even lower, with two of 12 Black AEW TNT Champions (16.7%) and infamously no Black AEW World Champions as of this writing.
The North American Champion has been Black more than 60% of the time
Even more interesting than the number of Black titleholders, however, is how long the reigns of Black titleholders have been. Black men hold the top four longest reigns with the title, and four of the top six:
- Wes Lee (269 days)
- Velveteen Dream (231 days)
- Keith Lee (182 days)
- Carmelo Hayes (172 days)
- Johnny Gargano (163 days)
- Ricochet (161 days)
Carmelo Hayes also has the most combined days as champion with 273 days between his two reigns. Gargano, the only three-time champion, is fourth at 181 days combined, coming in behind Hayes, Wes Lee, and Velveteen Dream. All told, of the 2,042 days (as of this writing) the North American title has existed and not been vacant, 1,251 have been during the reign of a Black champion. That means the North American title has been held by a Black person approximately 61.3% of the time. In contrast, the AEW TNT Championship has been held by a Black titleholder 11.2% of the time, with Scorpio Sky's two reigns putting him in seventh place in terms of combined days as champion and Powerhouse Hobbs' 42 days with the gold only failing to come in as the shortest TNT title reign because Adam Copeland recently held the title for approximately five minutes.
78% of North American Champions have been BIPOC
Perhaps as surprising as the number of Black men who have won the North American Championship is the number of white men who have won it. The nine non-Black Champions include the Mexican Dragon Lee and Dominik Mysterio, the Puerto Rican Damian Priest, and the Samoan Bronson Reed and Solo Sikoa, meaning only four of the 18 champions (22.2%) have been white, while 14 (77.8%) have been BIPOC. Those 14 men have thus far held the North American title for 1,539 out of 2,042 days (75.4%).
That number actually means BIPOC titleholders haven't quite gotten their representative share of days as champion — we joked about Powerhouse Hobbs earlier, but five of the 17 North American Champions that preceded Oba Femi have reigns of 42 days or fewer, all of them BIPOC:
- Bronson Reed (42 days)
- Dragon Lee (31 days)
- Leon Ruff (25 days)
- Solo Sikoa (7 days)
- Trick Williams (3 days)
Still, a 75.4% share remains both massive and unprecedented in mainstream American wrestling. Even the famously diverse "NXT" Women's Championship has only had 10 of 17 BIPOC champions (58.8%) who held the gold for 2,331 of 3,710 days (62.8%). However you feel about WWE, "NXT," Oba Femi, or the North American championship, the numbers don't lie: It's the most diverse title in the game.