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Jay Lethal has obviously been an incredibly dominant champion in ROH for well over two years now, first as the longest-reigning TV Champion in company history, and now as the ROH World Champion with a reign that recently passed the one year mark.
Jay has shown no signs of slowing down, and has already carved out a niche for himself as one of the most statistically successful ROH World Champions in history. He faces a stark test next month when he defends against Adam Cole at Death Before Dishonor, but let's take a look at exactly where he stands in the all-time list, and how much further he might go.
In terms of the length of the title reign, Jay Lethal currently stands at 406 days (as of this writing on July 29th, 2016) as the ROH World Champion, the fourth longest of any individual title reign. Austin Aries and Jay Briscoe obviously both held the title twice, but Lethal has already surpassed the combined length of Briscoe's reigns, and with no more title defenses between now and Death Before Dishonor, is guaranteed to pass the combined length of Austin Aries' reigns two weeks from today.
Lethal faces Cole a week after hitting that mark, and if he comes out of Death Before Dishonor with the title, he only has to hold onto it for another 36 days to pass Bryan Danielson as the third longest-reigning champion in history. After that, another 83 days before he passes Nigel McGuinness as the second longest reigning champion. So if Lethal's still the ROH World Champion after Final Battle, it's pretty much a lock that he'll get there.
Once he passes Nigel, he's still got another 100 days before he beats Samoa Joe's mark as the all-time longest reigning champion at 645 days. That seems like a lot on paper, but eight months from now doesn't really seem like such a strech when you consider how dominant he's been since winning the title from Jay Briscoe, and how ROH has done a great job of keeping fresh challengers in front of him.
In terms of title defenses, Lethal is once again in fourth place all-time for a single title reign, and only has to make four more successful title defenses before he beats the 29 defenses Austin Aries amassed between his combined reigns. Samoa Joe also made 29 successful defenses, so passing that number will put Lethal firmly in third place.
Once he reaches that 30th successful title defense, he's only nine defenses away from surpassing Nigel McGuinness and Bryan Danielson, who are tied for first with 38 successful defenses apiece. Both the longevity and successful title defense records are within Lethal's grasp, it just remains to be seen whether he'll get there.
Even though Lethal is still a ways away from setting ROH World Title records, he's already got some other, very impressive credentials under his belt. He's obviously the longest reigning TV Champion in company history, with his second reign falling only a week short of doubling the mark set by second place Matt Taven. When you throw in his first TV title reign, he held the ROH TV Title for a staggering 798 days.
But even more impressive than that is the fact that Jay Lethal is far and away THE most statistically successful ROH singles champion in history. When you combine his ROH World Title reign with his previous TV Title and Pure Title reigns, Jay Lethal has spent a combined 1,267 days as a singles champion in ROH, with 70 combined successful title defenses.
Nobody else comes close to that number, and even if you take out the 126 days he held both the ROH World Title and TV Title at the same time, he's still 246 days ahead of second place Nigel McGuinness, with a "mere" 895 days and 55 title defenses between his ROH World and Pure Title reigns, and over a year past Samoa Joe's 757 days and 35 defenses with those same two titles.
Throw in a Survival of the Fittest win in 2012, and you have a singles championship record that is simply unrivaled in ROH. His stats continue to increase with every day he holds that ROH World Title, and it'll be interesting to see if I get to write another column like this if he still has it around his waist in eight months while he's standing atop the charred remains of Samoa Joe's record.
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