Get ready, this is a bit of a long one. I'll try to go through each of Ric Flair's reigns to see how many are actually legit, and how many were unfairly disqualified. Note that I'll only bring up dubious wins for the most part if there's something interesting to say about them.

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On September 17th of '81, Flair won in a one on one match to win the 10lbs of gold. This one's pretty clear, it's legit and we can add one to the tally. (1 NWA, 1 TOTAL)

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Dusty Rhodes wearing a mask beat Ric Flair for the belt, but was disqualified by the NWA president, the title was then returned to Flair. This is our first taste of what I'd consider an illegitimate championship win. (1 NWA, 1 TOTAL)

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There are a few dubious reigns throughout 1982 and '83 that even the NWA don't recognize, I won't either. (1 NWA, 1 TOTAL)

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Flair beat Harley Race in a steel cage at Starrcade, this one's clean. (2 NWA, 2 TOTAL)

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Flair apparently wins the title again over Harley in Singapore of all places. Recognition is spotty from the NWA and the title change was not officially authorized, plus the match may be a straight up lie, I'm leaving it off. (2 NWA, 2 TOTAL)

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Flair became the first champion in the history of Jim Crockett promotions, and held the belt for over two years, pretty conclusive. (3 NWA, 3 TOTAL)

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Flair wins the title again in St Louis, holds it for over a year, you know the drill. (4 NWA, 4 TOTAL)

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Flair wins two more under the WCW banner, at Starrcade and WrestleWar. Keep in mind though this is still the NWA title we're talking about (6 NWA, 6 TOTAL)

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Flair won the title at a house show, lost to Tatsumi Fujinami at the Tokyo dome, and then won it back at the first Superbrawl. This change was ignored at the time and so some people would argue this is one reign. I'm going to make a judgement call that because he lost a title match at an official WCW event, that this counts for two, sue me. This was also the first time he was recognized as WCW champion, but since they were still part of the NWA, I'm counting these as NWA wins. We should still get the same total at the end. (8 NWA, 8 TOTAL)

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Ric Flair was then stripped of the belt as he left for the WWF, while there he won the Rumble for a vacant WWF championship, as well as one more win on an episode of Primetime Wrestling. (8 NWA, 2 WWF, 10 TOTAL)

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Richard came back to WCW and won one more at Beach Blast before WCW left the NWA, going off my previous call, I'm adding one to the NWA tally to get his commonly recognized 9. (9 NWA, 2 WWF, 10 TOTAL)

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Ric Flair, now in the "True" WCW era became the first ever champion at Starrcade 10th anniversary. He then faced Steamboat for the title which ended in a double pinfall, as per WCW rules, the title was vacated and Ric Flair ended up winning it back regardless. Given that it was their rules, and that Flair won a match as the challenger to an official vacant title, I'm counting two reigns. (9 NWA, 2 WCW, 2 WWF, 13 TOTAL)

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Flair then won another 4 WCW titles in fairly non controversial fashion (which is as good as you can hope for in late era WCW). So yes, I'm putting him above the touted 16. (9 NWA, 6 WCW, 2 WWF, 17 TOTAL)

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Flair was, get this, [I]handed the belt[/I] by Kevin Nash. I would have no problem with this if he was able to defend it. He lost to Jeff Jarrett that same night on nitro, no chance I'm counting this.

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That puts us at a final tally of 17 World Championships, so if John Cena wants to have the most, he needs two more of those shiny title victories. But at this point, I'll be counting it even if he wins one, because it truly hurts me to include a title won as a result of the fricking finger poke of doom as "legit"

TLDR: 17, give or take