10 WWE Champions You Didn't Care To Hate
3. Brock Lesnar
504 days is a long time for a stay away champion to hold a belt. Heck, 204 days is a long time for someone to be champion while only turning up every now and then. Brock Lesnar held the WWE Universal Championship from WrestleMania 33 (April 2017) all the way until SummerSlam 2018 (August), and the championship reign did untold damage to both RAW as a weekly TV show and the credibility of the title itself. Sure, Brock had some fun defences during that time (when he bothered to show up), but it was difficult to care too much about his reign. Did anybody believe that Samoa Joe was going to beat Lesnar? No, they didn't.
In those 504 days, Lesnar made only seven defences of the title. SEVEN. That's one every 72 days. If there was any credibility left in that 'mandatory 30-day defence' rule, The Beast Incarnate destroyed it. Of course, it should be difficult to get title matches, but it is also difficult to care about a championship when the champion is never around.
Roman Reigns eventually defeated Lesnar for the title, although that in itself was another eye-rolling moment from a company that specialises in the things. To compound the whole mess, Lesnar was champion again before the end of 2018.