Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins: Who Will Be 1st WWE Raw Star to Lose Title Belt?

Whenever a championship is around Brock Lesnar's waist, the WWE Universe can kiss it goodbye for the majority of the year.

This has happened enough times that the fans are used to it, even though that doesn't act as a proper excuse.

Essentially, there is an unspoken agreement between the audience and WWE that Lesnar doesn't show up because of a combination of wanting to keep him a special attraction, along with his preference to work fewer dates.

Lately, it hasn't seemed like that agreement has been continuing as much, as there has been more criticism of this sporadic-appearance-style booking than ever before, which is one of the reasons why Seth Rollins and his Intercontinental Championship reign stand out more than ever.

For years, this was a title that struggled in its attempts to be as credible as it once was in its heyday, but with a lot of help from The Miz and now Rollins, it has become the top belt on Monday Night Raw in Lesnar's absence.

However, while WWE is trying to make up for Lesnar's lack of screen time with Monday Night Rollins, it isn't going to last forever—nor, for that matter, will the Lesnar drought.

Sooner or later, both men will drop their titles, and the dynamic will change for the better or worse. It's only a question of which one will happen first to get the ball rolling.

There is a ton of variables that have to be factored into this question, and sadly, much of that information is unbeknownst to the general public.

WWE is always tight-lipped about Lesnar's future, with his current situation being even more secretive than ever before.

Since nothing is entirely believable through any news source—as it's all just hearsay, rumors and speculation from the ether, with much of it being self-contradictory—none of it has any credibility to start from.

For all we know, Lesnar's contract status can be a per-appearance deal that expires the next time he shows up, which could be before Money in the Bank or after.

There's a chance he works a good number of dates beyond that point, extending into Extreme Rules and even SummerSlam to round out the season.

It is even within the realm of possibility Lesnar holds this title heading into WrestleMania next year, as nothing can be taken as a guarantee.

Meanwhile, the same can't be said about Rollins, as that championship is being defended on a significantly more frequent basis.

The more title defenses he has, the more challengers on the roster he'll go through, which limits his options for future fights that don't come off repetitive.

If Rollins is defending his championship every Monday night, as it seems like he may do, he's going to run out of contenders in the span of a month or so. At that point, it will start to seem like he's done everything he can do with his title reign.

One advantage Rollins has over Lesnar is that his title reign is newer, and history shows that the longer someone holds a title, they are statistically closer to dropping that belt than right when they obtain it.

Naturally, there have been plenty of instances, like Kane's single-day WWF Championship victory over Stone Cold Steve Austin or Zack Ryder's Intercontinental Championship loss to The Miz, where someone hasn't had the title long at all. More often than not, a champion who has held a belt for a long time starts to run out of days.

Lesnar isn't your average Superstar, though, which is why that advantage may not even matter.

He's coming up on surpassing CM Punk's WWE Championship reign as the longest world-title run in the modern era, which he will succeed in overtaking by the time Money in the Bank comes along.

Based on the current lineup for the show and last night's episode of Raw, neither Lesnar nor Rollins is set to defend their title at that pay-per-view, meaning both should be safe.

At the very least, though, Lesnar is going to still be holding his title come June 18, as there's a much higher likelihood Rollins gets a match added to the card at the last minute than Lesnar, who is always advertised well enough in advance to make a big spectacle out of it.

There's nothing that states Rollins can't drop the title on Raw itself, however, as that has happened over 50 times throughout the championship's lineage. In fact, the two champions prior to Rollins—Reigns and The Miz—both won their titles on Raw in November and January.

In some ways, this would seem to point in the direction that Rollins will be losing his championship first, as those defenses will add up and he'll meet his match quicker than Lesnar, who is treated as being above everybody on the roster.

With all the possible next intercontinental champions waiting in the wings like Elias, Bobby Lashley, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Bobby Roode, Rollins seems doomed.

In reality, though, none of that matters in regards to Lesnar's future, as there is no chance WWE is weighing the plans involving him against what is going on with Rollins.

Lesnar takes priority over everything else, and with the way the company has booked him in the past few years, entire divisions can be thrown into a frenzy just to make room for him to have one particular match.

This happened with Goldberg taking the Universal Championship from Owens in the first place, just to drop it to Lesnar, as it looked like the more obvious route to take would have been Chris Jericho fighting Owens for that title at WrestleMania last year.

Credit: WWE.com

Just to do the Goldberg and Lesnar angle, Owens dropped his title at Fastlane, Jericho was given the United States Championship, those two feuded over that, and both the main event and midcard were swapped around quite a bit, before the Superstar Shake-up had even taken place.

If there is a plan for how long Lesnar is going to stick around, that won't be changed no matter what is going on elsewhere in the company.

The only things that WWE will be factoring in are how many more appearances Lesnar has on his contract and who he'll drop the title to, which will probably be Reigns, judging by keeping him constantly in the main event picture.

As nobody else is being set up in a similar way and Reigns continues to harp on the Greatest Royal Rumble fiasco, where he effectively won his match despite the referee's decision being the opposite, logic dictates another Reigns-and-Lesnar collision will happen soon.

Credit: WWE.com

Jinder Mahal is clearly a sacrificial lamb in the meantime, setting up a match with Reigns at Money in the Bank, pushing the confrontation between Reigns and Lesnar until either Extreme Rules or SummerSlam.

There's virtually no way Lesnar holds that title past SummerSlam and into Hell in a Cell and TLC, so his time is up in August at the latest, as that is the bigger event and the more likely time frame WWE would look at having him headline the show.

If we can assume that is the projected target date for the end of his reign, what time frame is Rollins looking at?

Over the past five years, the average run for the Intercontinental Championship has been roughly 74 days, which would put Rollins just slightly past Money in the Bank.

For him to reach the SummerSlam date, it would put him at nearly double the average title reign length, which has already happened three out of the past eight champions and isn't likely to happen again.

Therefore, with all this taken into account, it seems as though Rollins could lose the Intercontinental Championship sometime around Extreme Rules to a heel in order to make room for Reigns as a babyface—albeit a controversial one—to take the title from Lesnar at SummerSlam the following month.

Rollins losing the championship before Lesnar is the best bet at the moment, but in WWE, anything can change at any time, so we'll just have to keep our eyes on both champions until something happens.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.