Alex Hammerstone Discusses Fan Reaction To Long Title Reigns, How To Keep Them Fresh

Alex Hammerstone has been the MLW World Heavyweight Champion since MLW Fightland in October 2021. He’s held the title for nearly 650 days and will defend the belt against Alex Kane at MLW Never Say Never on July 8 at MLW Never Say Never. 

Hammerstone’s reign is the second longest in MLW history, still well behind the 819 days the title was held by Jacob Fatu, who was defeated by Hammerstone for the title. 

Speaking to Jeremy Lambert & Joel Pearl on In The Weeds, Hammerstone reflected on his February 2023 title defense against Fatu, and how the crowd in Philadelphia might be ready for a title change.  

“When I wrestled Fatu a couple of months ago, they were ready to see a new champion. They were kind of more in his corner than they were mine. I don’t know if we’re going to see a repeat of that (at MLW Never Say Never). We’re living in the ADD era. People want a quick Instagram reel or TikTok. It’s hard to convince someone to sit down and pay attention to something. It’s the exact same way in wrestling. No matter how much they love someone or want them to be the champion, if you’ve had it for more than three shows, they’re excited about the next guy winning it. I don’t know if we’re going to see that vibe takeover the arena this weekend. It’s very much a possibility they are excited at the prospect of a new champ that the crowd shifts in his favor. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with in the past,” he said.

Hammerstone has made 16 successful title defenses across multiple promotions during his reign, defeating the likes of Bandido, YAMATO, EJ Nduka, and more. 

When asked how to keep a long title reign fresh, he replied, “To a certain extent, fans are always going to get burnt out. There are some people, no matter if you feed someone filet mignon every night of the week but eventually they’re going to say ‘I want a cheeseburger.’ No matter how good it is, eventually, people crave something different for the sake of craving something different. Sometimes, once they get it, they realize, ‘Oh crap, I should have kept my mouth shut.’ People will root for an underdog in wrestling and once they win, they’re like, ‘Oh, we had fun cheering for them but we didn’t expect this to happen, and now we don’t really know what we want.’ That being said, I think it comes down to making sure there is someone there interesting to oppose them. No matter how good or talented someone is at the top, if they don’t have someone meaningful to build stories with, it gets difficult. If you can create something people are invested in and people want to keep seeing that champion fight, that really helps. Then, it’s finding different ways to keep it fresh. Different types of matches, things of that nature, shifts in the character. It is an uphill battle these days. Back in the day, people only saw the wrestling when they saw the wrestling. Even the most available stuff, Monday Night Raw, was once a week and you didn’t see wrestling anymore. Now, you watch wrestling on the night it happens, and you see the review the next day and then highlights on Twitter after that, then the recap the next day on YouTube. By the time you’re to the next week, you’ve been watching that show over and over, and you’re already sick of what happened on that show. It’s a different era, but little things like that can make it a little more interesting.”

Alex Kane earned his shot at the title by winning MLW Battle Riot 2023. 

Fans can check out the current lineup for MLW Never Say Never by clicking here. 

Watch the full interview with Hammerstone in the video above.