7 Reasons Brock Lesnar Shouldn't Break CM Punk's Modern WWE World Championship Record

7. Lesnar Has Barely Defended The Title

Paul Heyman Brock Lesnar
WWE.com

Once upon a time, WWE had a rule that every championship must be defended within 30 days. If a champion failed to defend the title in that period, they were to be stripped of the title. A new champion would then be crowned via a tournament, battle royal or some other manner. The rule has often been used in storyline, either to move a title or to advance an injury story.

Normal wrestling rules don’t apply to Brock Lesnar however, and The Conquerer has done decidedly little conquering in his near 420 days as Universal Champion. Lesnar has put the title on the line just six times in that period, and only four of those bouts have been singles matches. The shortest period between defences was the 19 days between WrestleMania 34 and the Greatest Royal Rumble, but usually fans have had to wait multiple months before seeing Brock and RAW’s top championship.

There is an argument that can be made for rare defences in order to build up the prestige of a championship. Kazuchika Okada’s current IWGP Heavyweight Championship is a good example of that. But you don’t need to be a New Japan fan to see the difference in presentation and how that difference has hurt the Universal Championship. Okada is portrayed as a fighting champion and his title is a belt that only the best can challenge for. Lesnar is presented as a guy who can’t really be bothered to show up for work.

In the same amount of time, CM Punk defended the WWE Championship on TV on 20 occasions.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.