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

5. A Little Color Brightens Things Up

Brock Lesnar Cody Rhodes
WWE.com

When in doubt, Brock Lesnar is the best person to turn a match into an epic affair with one simple move.

During his match against Cody Rhodes, Lesnar got sent into an exposed turnbuckle, which he rammed into face first and busted himself open hardway. The blood quickly started flowing, and the match instantly went from “pretty good” to “can’t take your eyes off the screen.” Brock wore the crimson mask, spurting blood as Cody pounded away on the cut and repeatedly chopped the Beast down with Cody Cutters and a Disaster Kick before hitting the Cross Rhodes twice for a near-fall.

WWE is never going to be like AEW and have blood on nearly every PLE card, but matches like these are elevated by the visual of the Beast streaming claret and Rhodes smearing it on his chest. It made Cody look that much more like he was out for blood… literally. And it gave the visual of Lesnar as a wounded animal.

See? Even the plays on words and phrases are better with blood.

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Contributor
Contributor

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.