Massive Heel Turn, Beatdown Closes Out WWE Raw After WrestleMania

Cowboy Brock is no more, and Cody Rhodes is worse for wear because of it.

by Scott Carlson
Brock Lesnar
WWE.com

Brock Lesnar was set to compete in his first WWE tag match in more than 19 years on Monday Night Raw before all hell broke loose.

Cody Rhodes had challenged Roman Reigns to a rematch for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, but the Bloodline rebuffed him. Undeterred, Rhodes challenged Reigns and Solo Sikoa to a tag match for Raw. The Bloodline agreed, but with the stipulation that anyone who teamed with Cody could never challenge Roman for his titles.

Cue Brock, who already was facing a permanent blackout to challenge Reigns for the unified titles after losing at SummerSlam. Just like that, an epic tag match was set to close out Raw.

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But during introductions later on, Lesnar turned on Rhodes and decimated him with F-5s, chairshots, ring steps and more. Brock absolutely thrashed Cody about ringside and back in the ring, with a final F-5 onto the steel ring steps to seemingly close out the mauling before returning to batter him with a steel chair a few times.

The beatdown of the American Nightmare represents the first full heel turn for Brock since returning to WWE in fall 2021. During that time, Lesnar adopted a persona probably closer to the real person, dubbed Cowboy Brock, who would show up in his best Canadian tuxedo and cowboy hat, smiling and looking to destroy opponents.

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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.