6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (17 July - Review)

by Scott Carlson

1. Challenge Accepted… B****

Cody Rhodes Brock Lessnar
WWE.com

Brock Lesnar’s evolution as a heel has been a sight to behold. From fun-loving country Brock to this more calculating – even timid – Lesnar, it’s a very noticeable shift.

The Beast still can and will demolish an opponent – as he did Monday with Cody Rhodes – but he’s not the typical bull in a China shop, plowing through security and brawling like a badass. Instead, he’s playing games, ignoring Cody’s challenges and false-starting his music to further rile Rhodes up.

The result Monday was Cody losing his patience and stalking up the entrance and back to gorilla, where Brock attacked him with a chair and proceeded to batter the American Nightmare into submission before leaving him laid out in the ring. Brock might not be a chess master, but he very clearly was planning ahead with weeks of letting Rhodes get himself worked up.

The interesting piece here now is whether Cody can channel that rage and overcome Lesnar or if he’ll get suckered into fighting Brock’s fight. It’s not just a simple rubber match, but Cody trying to rid himself of this Beast… who also happens to be a thinking Beast.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.