Seth Rollins Wrestled More In One Night Than Brock Lesnar Has Since Becoming Universal Champion

Even if you didn’t watch WWE Raw live this week, you know by now that Seth Rollins spent an astonishing 65 minutes in the ring for a gauntlet match, pinning both Roman Reigns and John Cena clean, and setting a record for the longest time any WWE Superstar has spent in a match on Raw.

Now, that’s impressive enough (especially since it was also a really good match), but twitter user @The_Meme_Elite pointed out something else that’s worth noting:

According to them, Seth spent more time in the ring on Monday than Brock Lesnar has spent since winning the Universal Championship at WrestleMania last year. But you can’t just take random twitter memes as gospel, so obviously I fact-checked it. Turns out it’s true … more or less.

Allow me to play Dana Brooke for a moment, and show you the numbers:

• Lesnar versus Samoa Joe at Great Balls of Fire (remember when that was the name of a PPV?) lasted 6:25.
• The Fatal Five-Way at Summerslam with Roman Reigns, Samoa Joe, and Braun Strowman lasted 20:45, and that’s counting the entire match, even though Braun was stretchered out and missed a ton of it.
• Lesnar versus Braun at No Mercy lasted 9 minutes.
• Lesnar versus AJ Styles at Survivor Series lasted 15:25.
• Finally, the Triple Threat with Kane and Braun at the Royal Rumble lasted 10:55.

Add all of those up, and sure enough, you get 62:30, which is in fact two and a half minutes less than the 65 Seth spent in that match on Raw.

Now here’s where the “more or less” comes in. In addition to those five PPV matches, Brock also fought Samoa Joe at two house shows last summer, in Detroit and Tampa. I don’t know how long those matches were, but they almost certainly added up to more than two and a half minutes. But when you’re talking about the guy who’s supposed to be the company’s top champion, “Technically he was in the ring longer over the course of a year than Seth Rollins was in one night, if you count house shows” is a pretty weak defense.

Brock Lesnar may still be a draw, and he certainly still has his fans, but nobody will ever accuse him of being a fighting champion. Mostly, he’s a “bouncing up and down while his friend talks” champion. Maybe we should run the numbers on how much of the last year he spent doing that.