AEW Double or Nothing 2026 saw the latest chapter of the rivalry between MJF and Darby Allin unfold, as the heel regained the world title he’d dropped to his fellow Pillar of AEW in an intense main event. So ended a brief, but very memorable championship run.
Indeed, while mainstream wresting fans have grown accustomed to certain type of top title reign via WWE—particularly in recent years—Allin’s time on top demonstrated there are different and exciting ways to book the top prize a company has to offer.
There’s Only Been One World Title Defense In WWE Since WrestleMania
When Roman Reigns spent 1,316 days as WWE’s top champion from 2020 to 2024, it didn’t so much invent as reinforce a specific model of champion. Gone are the days when WWE adhered to its rule that titles must defended at least once every thirty days. Here are the days of part-time champions and normalizing two-to-three month stretches without a given title being up for grabs.
While Cody Rhodes defended the Undisputed WWE Championship more regularly than The Tribal Chief, each of his reigns has demonstrated a certain kind of sameness in title defenses mostly sticking to PLEs and not happening at every single one. World Heavyweight Championship reigns of Seth Rollins, Damian Priest, Gunther, and Jey Uso all skewed in similar directions, as did John Cena’s last WWE Championship reign along his farewell tour.
Indeed, only the reigns of CM Punk and Drew McIntyre felt at least a little different. McIntyre’s reign ran just shy of two months, with one PLE and one free TV defense (but also quite a few house show defenses). Punk’s five months on top saw him work a fighting champion gimmick that stood out from others, including three Raw and two PLE title defenses (plus a number of house show title matches).
Still, despite a few anomalies, the story of WWE world titles post WrestleMania 42—at press time, five weeks and counting–seems representative of the current picture. Reigns has defended his newly won World Heavyweight Championship once, opposite Jacob Fatu at Backlash. Rhodes has not yet defended his WWE Championship since fending off Randy Orton.
On the women’s side, Rhea Ripley hasn’t put the Women’s Championship on the line yet, nor has Liv Morgan defended the Women’s World Championship. (To be fair, three of these titles will be on the line at Clash in Italy, but that still after over 40 days of waiting.)
One might draw all manner of conclusions about these trends, but regardless, it’s undeniable that WWE’s top titles haven’t been on the line much this spring.
Darby Allin Worked Fresh Title Defenses And Worked Them Constantly
Darby Allin unseated MJF for the AEW World Championship in a shocking upset squash on April 15, the same week as WrestleMania 42. The reign has now come to a close, but it’s very telling in his less-than-six weeks on top, he defended the title eight times.
Allin fended off Tommaso Ciampa, Brody King, Kevin Knight, PAC, Konosuke Takeshita, Sammy Guevara, and Mike Bailey—a truly diverse set of challengers, many of them fresh to the world title picture (and/or it had been quite a while since they sniffed the main event scene). Moreover, none of these matches ran under ten minutes, only one lasted less than fifteen, and every single outing proved hard-hitting, with no “safe,” easy bouts along the way.
Even CM Punk—WWE’s fightingest world champ in recent memory—only worked four different men in five matches across a reign over four times as long.
Darby Allin’s Reign Was Short And Sweet
Particularly in WWE, fans are in an age of long-reigning world champions as full-year spans spent on top are not out of the ordinary. Indeed the reigns that don’t exceed reach the half-year mark tend to have either been significantly less memorable and eventful like Damian Priest’s time as World Heavyweight Champion or else clearly set out to serve specific booking purposes like Drew McIntyre’s most recent WWE Championship reign adding some drama and giving Cody Rhodes a reason to work the Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber.
Darby Allin only reigning for a month and change was less a fluke than a specific kind of story as he defended his championship with a fury, backing down from no one, working no easy matches, dropping the title in line with a narrative of him fighting himself into exhaustion. Despite the brevity of the reign, his time as champ may well be one of the best-remembered title reigns of recent years, and particularly so in AEW.
Different Styles Of Reigns Have Different Merits
Ultimately, Darby Allin’s short but exhaustive world title reign that saw him defend this belt more than once a week on average was not necessarily a better reign than any of MJF’s, or the reigns of other top stars in AEW, nor WWE’s world champs. Indeed, there’s something to be said for a world title being defended sparingly, making it important when title matches do come and ensuring all challengers feel like credible threats who’ve earned number one contendership.
Moreover, stability at the top of the card does matter to give a world champion the opportunity to assert his or her place as the face of a company in the time-honored tradition of talents like Bruno Sammartino, Bob Backlund, Hulk Hogan, and John Cena.
However, there is also merit to different kinds of reigns, and particularly different kinds of reigns that match the styles of different kinds of performers. CM Punk’s 2025-2026 World Heavyweight Championship showed echoes of Bret Hart’s babyface WWE Championship reigns in the 1990s. Each were, largely defined by an in-ring virtuoso putting on solid matches against an array of opponents with greater frequency than WWE fans were accustomed to seeing.
Allin’s reign was its own beast—a daredevil taking on all comers, not shying away from heavy punishment or risky spots to go down in a blaze of glory. Truth be told, wrestling would probably be the better for more reigns that are not necessarily like Allin’s, but similarly tailored to the character and style of performer at hand.
