WWE Superstar Dean Ambrose is injured. While you can bet he’s going to get back in the ring as soon as possible, the door is left wide open for a new Superstar to take Ambrose’s now-vacant title — that of WWE’s resident Iron Man.
While not formally recognized by the WWE, the distinction of WWE Iron Man goes to the wrestler who wrestles the most matches in a year without missing more than 40 days at a time. In recent years, Ambrose took a whole lot of pride in the fact that he worked more matches than anyone else in the company from year to year, and that while he’s always hurt, he had never been seriously injured — until now.
Part-time improv comedian, full-time wrestling guy Chris Harrington keeps track of this stuff over at Wrestlenomics Radio. Here are the stats for Ambrose before his triceps got tore up:
Dean Ambrose was the current WWE iron man (1,054 matches between 3/3/2012
and 12/18/2017) when he got hurt. He had a gap of 37 days in 2012 and 35 days in 2014 but 2013 was only 13 days, 2015 was only 8 days, 2016 was only 6 days and 2017 was only 12 days. #wrestlenomics— Chris Harrington (@mookieghana) December 26, 2017
Now that Ambrose is out of action, there’s a new title holder in town. The new Iron Man may surprise you, as it’s not someone who is currently main eventing. It’s not someone who has been shoved down our throats relentlessly for the past few years, either. It’s not a singles wrestler, in fact. It’s someone you might not even be able to pick out in a crowd …
… but that’s just because he’s got an identical twin. Jimmy Uso is the WWE Iron Man, with nearly 1,000 matches on his current streak. He’s never had a gap of more than 34 days in his eight years with the company, according to Harrington.
The person who becomes the new WWE iron man? Jimmy Uso. He's been doing WWE shows since 6/4/10 and is at 982 matches currently. If you include FCW, it's even longer. He's had gaps of 15-24 days, but never more than 34 days (2016). #wrestlenomics
— Chris Harrington (@mookieghana) December 26, 2017
If you’re not following Harrington already, now is a great time to change that. There’s so much potential in giving sports entertainment the “actual sport” treatment and tracking statistics like this is just pure fun. To find out who is trailing Uso via a large, informative, and colorful chart, smash the follow button for Chris Harrington.
Now can we get Cal Ripken to accompany Jimmy to the ring next week? Iron Men gotta stick together!
