Brock Lesnar: The Beast’s Universal Championship Defenses Ranked

Brock Lesnar won the Universal Championship from Goldberg at WrestleMania 33. He’ll enter SummerSlam for his seventh televised title defense in a reign lasting over 500 days. Which of those rare matches is the best?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Brock Lesnar is less of a champion and more of a guy holding a piece of hardware hostage. On April 2, 2017, Lesnar defeated Goldberg for the Universal Championship. Over the 500+ days since, the Universal Championship has only been defended on television six times. (Well, “televised” as in “aired on the WWE Network”; Brock Lesnar hasn’t competed on WWE Raw since 2002.)

At SummerSlam this Sunday, Lesnar will defend the Universal Championship against Roman Reigns. It’s the third chance Reigns has been given to knock off The Beast in a singles match. And, after the first two matches were received less than enthusiastically by the WWE Universe, most are not thrilled at the prospect of yet another match between the two.

Brock Lesnar has his fair share of critics, thanks to his infrequent appearances and almost non-existent matches. His supporters, though, point to the fact that he’s a “special attraction,” and he usually delivers in the ring when push comes to shove. But is that really true?

Sure, Lesnar has provided some memorable moments throughout his WWE career, including since his return to the company in 2012. But how good have his matches lately been? Since it’s such a small sample size, let’s look at Brock’s Universal Championship defenses, and rank them from best to worst. Then we can see just how good he’s really been of late.