The records stand as follows:

NWA World Heavyweight Championship - Lou Thesz at 5 years and 116 days.
(Nov. 27, 1949 - Mar. 22, 1955)

WWWF Championship - Bruno Sammartino at 7 years 248 days.
(May 17, 1963 - Jan. 18, 1971)

That's all-time. The latter is widely accepted as the single longest title reign in professional wrestling.Fast forward to the "Golden Age", which for purposes of simplicity is the entire 1980's decade.

NWA World - Ric Flair at 2 years and 63 days.
(May 24, 1984 - Jul. 26, 1986)

WWF Championship - Hulk Hogan at 4 years and 14 days
(Jan. 23, 1984 - Feb. 5, 1988)

Those seem pretty long, don't they? Let's look at the 1990's.

NWA World - Dan Severn at 4 years and 19 days
(Feb. 24, 1995 - Mar. 14, 1999)

WWF Championship - Diesel at 358 days
(Nov. 26, 1994 - Nov. 19, 1995)

No, that first one is NOT a joke. What is a joke is that is that over 10 years, the WWF Championship changed hands FORTY times. Forty as in 40! In ten years! The NWA only had fourteen (14) changes. Now the decade that has just passed...

NWA World - Blue Demon Jr. at 1 year and 140 days
(Oct. 25, 2008 - Mar. 14, 2010)

WWF/E Championship - John Cena at 1 year and 15 days
(Sep. 17, 2006 - Oct. 2, 2007)

Wow, how far we've fallen! The WWE Championship changed hands FORTY-NINE (49) times this decade! The NWA now had THIRTY (30)! What the hell?!

Part of this can be blamed on us, the fans. It seems like every 3 months, if that, we're pining for another champion to break the monotony of this guy. Where was that at year 5 of Bruno's reign, or even year 2 of Thesz's? I think we've become too critical of the business.

Another factor that readily comes to mind is that of all the numbers above, I didn't add total defenses. In Bruno's and Thesz's reigns, how often did they defend their title? Once, maybe twice, a month? How often did Cena defend his title during his reign? One would naturally say "every pay-per-view", which is true. However, the champion occasionally defends on television (that's how Mankind got his first title), as well as 2 or 3 times a WEEK in house shows that we don't see or hear about.

Cena may have held the title for only a fraction of Bruno, but I'd be more than willing to bet you that in Cena, in his one year reign, defended his title MORE than Bruno in his seven year reign.

As for the question in the title:

Will Title Lenth Records Ever Be Broken? My answer is a firm, confident "No."

With those belts? No. But with the major indy belts, lenght records (which can easily last a year and a half) all definitely have a chance at being broken (even those of Joe, MsChif, and Drake Younger, which all came close to two years).

As for the WWE belts and their number of defenses; Look at TNA. If they are doing ONE thing right, it is the way their treat their top belt (aside from throwing it in the trash, of course). AJ and Angle, had to defend the belt at house shows, too, but TNA didn't switch the belt around every few months. Every wrestler who could still go at a high level (no, not you, Sting) had a decent-sized reign as the champion.

Big Red Machine wrote: Every wrestler who could still go at a high level... had a decent-sized reign as the champion.

What constitutes a "decent-sized reign"? The longest reign of the TNA World Heavyweight Championship was 211 days by AJ Styles (From 9/20/09 to 4/19/10). Only four of their reigns have lasted over 150 days. 211 days, I think, is a figurative flash in the pan.

kirbs2002 wrote:

Big Red Machine wrote: Every wrestler who could still go at a high level... had a decent-sized reign as the champion.

What constitutes a "decent-sized reign"? The longest reign of the TNA World Heavyweight Championship was 211 days by AJ Styles (From 9/20/09 to 4/19/10). Only four of their reigns have lasted over 150 days. 211 days, I think, is a figurative flash in the pan.

About 4 or 5 months minimum, although it depends on how they lose the belt. Foley's reign was short, but the way he lost the belt (a huge turn revealing a conspiracy) made that okay.

Mainstream wrestling has to change their champion every few months or so to keep the public interested. Indy wrestling has their champs hold the belt longer because the indy fans appreciate it more. Moxley has held the CZW World Title since February, excluding that week he lost it to Gage in August, and I'm sure is gonna keep it to the one year mark. Tyler Black held the ROH belt for a good time, etc.

yourcrapsweak wrote:Mainstream wrestling has to change their champion every few months or so to keep the public interested.

I don't think that this is true. People care about who the champ is, and what he is doing. They don't want random title changes. They want title changes that mean something. A long run can work fine. Hogan's first nWo reign in WCW and Triple H's reign in 2003 prove this. The reign was long, but it worked because the fans wanted to see this guy beaten SO BADLY that when he was beaten it was a big deal.
A run like Nigel's or Joe's or Younger's, where we are let wondering whether it is even POSSIBLE for someone to beat this guy would work just as well with mainstream fans.

Unfortunately I don't see title reign records being broken, but I do see someone (Angle, Jarrett, or HHH) breaking Flair's 16-title record (actually 22 from my research)...