Whilst the current WFTDA Championships structure provides the opportunity to win the Hydra once a year, commentators have pointed out to us that there's other sports where Championships pass rather more easily.

In particular, Boxing allows Championship Belts to be won by anyone successfully defeating the holder, at any point in time.

So, we thought it might be interesting to see what would have happened to a "Dust Devil Cup" under the same rules; imagine Texas Rollergirls, winners of the first ever modern Roller Derby tournament, the Dust Devil Cup in 2006, passing it on to whoever next defeated them, and on and on up to the present day?

Well, you get a rich and varied look through the history of Roller Derby, like this:

Inaugural Champions Texas Rollergirls 24/2/2006 - 9/12/06 Tucson Roller Derby 9/12/06 - 18/2/07 Rat City Roller Girls 18/2/07 - 28/4/07 Windy City Rollers 28/4/07 - 19/8/07 Gotham Girls Roller Derby 19/8/07 - 29/9/07 Kansas City Roller Warriors 29/9/07 - 2/12/07 Carolina Rollergirls 2/12/07 - 19/7/08 Cincinnati Rollergirls 19/7/08 - 13/9/08 Detroit Derby Girls 13/9/08 - 11/10/08 Philly Roller Derby 11/10/08 - 11/10/08 Gotham Girls Roller Derby 11/10/08 - 14/11/09 Oly Rollers 14/11/09 - 3/10/10 Rocky Mountain Rollergirls 3/10/10 - 4/6/11 Oly Rollers 4/6/11 - 13/11/11 Gotham Girls Roller Derby 13/11/11 - ...

Here we have a decision to make. If we decide that the "Dust Devil Cup" is only eligible for WFTDA member leagues, then the chain ends with Gotham's first loss at a WFTDA Championships in many years, in 2015:

Gotham Girls Roller Derby 13/11/11 - 8/11/15 Rose City Rollers 8/11/15 - 30/4/16 Victorian Roller Derby League 30/4/16 - 5/11/16 Rose City Rollers 5/11/16 - Current Champions

If we embrace all of Roller Derby, however, we remember that Gotham had lost one time before then, in a battle of the Champions held in 2013. In this case, the chain goes:

Gotham Girls Roller Derby 13/11/11 - 6/6/13 Your Mom Men's Roller Derby 6/6/13 - 18/10/15 St Louis Gatekeepers 18/10/15 - 14/5/16 Team USA Men's Roller Derby 14/5/16 - Current Champions

but perhaps having the USA National Men's team in charge of the Cup is a little too controversial, even for a light amusement like this...

In both cases, however, there's an other interesting point to be made by this: even allowing any loss at all to count, Gotham's dominance over Roller Derby was genuinely astonishing, compared to the period before (where the Cup would have changed hands at least twice a year), and the new period after (where it has already changed hands twice in the past year). It's also a new period in that teams are actually losing outside of Champs - something which used to be not-unexpected occurrence, but now something which is again no longer quite as surprising.