Yeah, MOVs usually come with rating curves -- big boy lightning surges are down in the 100s, or 10s or 1s of cycles lifetime range. There is a limit, where lifetime goes towards infinity; it's just completely useless for surge protection purposes. If you needed so little (a few J) protection, you'd put in a TVS instead.
Or, if you have an application where the pulse width is much longer than direct/induced lightning, in which case there is some economic argument in favor of them (MOVs are cheaper than TVSs, for the same energy capacity for long pulses). That's like 10ms+ pulses.
(Interestingly enough, they do make TVSs for lightning suppression; they do not have a wear mechanism, they just fail shorted (or, if your fault current or fusing isn't very good, they'll probably still blow the fuck up...

) when absorbing too much energy. Downside: they're a bit bigger than MOVs, and
hella more expensive!

)
Tim