7 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Backlash 2023 (Review)

Downs…

3. Cody Escapes With The Win

This is one of those “your mileage may vary” deals.

Cody Rhodes picked up an important win at Backlash, defeating Brock Lesnar in a grudge match that should have been his first WWE Championship title defense, but that’s beside the point.

The story here was Brock jumping and battering Rhodes on the Raw after WrestleMania 39, and Cody sought revenge. He would bloody up Lesnar badly and lay into him, but he got the win by pushing up while Brock had him in a Kimura, pinning the Beast while he had a submission hold locked in.

And then Cody rolled out of the ring to celebrate, essentially fleeing because Lesnar was furious at losing while having a submission locked in. That’s how the show went off the air.

It’s a terrible look for Rhodes, who inexplicably lost his world title match to Roman Reigns at Mania last month. Instead of slaying the Beast, Cody used leverage to survive.

There’s always the possibility this is going to lead to a second match between the two at Night of Champions (Brock typically works the Saudi shows), and that would take Rhodes out of the World Heavyweight Championship picture. So, we’ll give this a mild down – the result was the right one, and there’s a plausible reason. But if it turns out this was just to keep Brock strong, then it was a bad move.