Top 7 Winning Streaks in Wrestling

Our boy IMissMarkingOut has another magnificent idea for a Top Seven list. Let’s see what he’s got for us this time:

Wrestlemania is coming up and with the inclusion of Goldberg and Undertaker, I’d like to see a Top 7 Undefeated Streaks. Base the list on whatever criteria you want, be it longevity, memorability and maybe what was accomplished during the span such as title victories.

I like it! I liked the days when wins & losses mattered. Let’s take it back to those days right now by looking at the seven best winning streaks in wrestling history.

7. Steve “Dr. Death” Williams

Something that a lot of us have noticed over the years about North American talent that go to Japan: They become less willing to lose. It’s not entirely their fault. Japanese bookers seem to think that things like wins & losses matter, and they don’t like their employees coming back home and putting people over for no good reason. Or for any reason, honestly. Steve Williams was one of Bill Watts’ favorites, and rarely jobbed in Mid-South or the UWF anyway. Once he got over in New Japan? Forget about it. Dr. Death wasn’t looking up at the lights for anybody on his rare appearances in the States. Maybe he would have if that Ric Flair feud happened after Jim Crockett bought the UWF, but it never came to pass. Flair wrestled Williams once, and that was good enough for the Nature Boy.

Williams ended up moving to All Japan, and things didn’t change much. Finally, almost ten years after the last time he had taken a pinfall in North America, Williams lost to Raven in an ECW championship match. Paul Heyman must have had his best batch of Kool-Aid on tap backstage that evening is all I can say. This streak would rank higher had Williams been in North America more often during the time period.

6. Tatanka

The first undefeated streak I remember watching was that of the Native American, Tatanka. He debuted on the February 1, 1992 edition of WWF Superstars, and wasn’t defeated in a wrestling match until the October 30, 1993 edition by the feared Ludvig Borga. That’s a long period of time to go without a loss on television, but I don’t rate it higher on the list due to his strength of schedule. He got a couple of wins over a young Shawn Michaels, but his main feud during this time was with Rick Martel post-push. Basically, he padded his win total with a bunch of ham n’ eggers. At the time I didn’t realize this, and had Tatanka pegged as a future WWF Champion. I hear he’s a jam-up guy though, so there’s that.

5. Bruno Sammartino

I’m glad that Bruno was able to mend fences with the McMahon family in the years before his death so they would recognize his legacy. He beat Buddy Rogers for the WWWF Championship in less than a minute. Sammartino remained champion for 2,803 days. Seven years, eight months & one day. I know we have some long title reigns these days, but I can guarantee you that no active champion defending on a regular basis in a major promotion will ever break that record. There were some time-limit draws and disqualifications mixed in here & there, and maybe even a non-title loss or two, I’m not sure. The record-keeping for those days wasn’t the best. In any event, Sammartino was the most dominant champion of his or any other era.

4. Asuka

Asuka debuted on October 7, 2015 at NXT Takeover: Respect. She kept winning & winning in NXT and got called up to the main roster without even losing NXT’s Women’s Championship fairly & squarely. Once she got called up, she won the first women’s Royal Rumble Match & the first Mixed Match Challenge. She challenged Charlotte Flair for the SmackDown Women’s Championship, and that led to her very first loss in WWE. Auska worked for 914 days without losing a match. Pretty impressive.

3. Andre the Giant

The build to WrestleMania III involved Andre being undefeated for fifteen years. And as far as WWF viewers knew, that was accurate. He never lost on their television. There were some losses here and there in various territories. There were even instances where Andre got bodyslammed that most people never knew about. They didn’t matter. All most people knew is that Andre was an unstoppable force that never seemed to get a title shot, so once the Giant set his sights on Hulk Hogan it was game on. It made WrestleMania III the sort of thing that could bring 93,173 people to Pontiac, Michigan.

2. The Undertaker

When we talk about Undertaker’s “streak”, everybody knows what we’re talking about. The man won 21 straight WrestleMania matches. What a lot of people forget is that the streak randomly happened. WrestleMania IX was a win by DQ against the immortal Giant Gonzalez. He didn’t even work X. The streak wasn’t even mentioned until X-Seven when he was up against HHH. Then a few years later it became one of the things WrestleMania was built around. 21-XXX all had major Undertaker matches built around the idea of breaking the streak. Brock Lesnar got it done at XXX, and people were shook. The streak was built for a decade, and it was one of the things that made WrestleMania the brand name it is today.

1. Goldberg

People wanted to knock the Goldberg streak after WCW lost the Monday Night War. They wanted to talk about how the numbers were cooked. Let’s be honest. Nobody cared about that while it was happening. Fans around the world were wrapped up in Goldberg squashing fools every single week. He was a talking point in school along with Stone Cold & the NWO. Goldberg came into WCW as a rookie, and he didn’t lose a match for over fifteen months.

I hate to disagree with people inside the business, but I feel the need to speak on the behalf of my fellow fans. The numbers didn’t matter. We just saw Goldberg squashing people every week and we loved it. It was WCW’s saving grace for most of 1998. While most of their other stuff was flopping, Goldberg was keeping people interested. Once they ended the streak, that was one less reason for people to care.