It really doesn’t take a lot for a Brock Lesnar match to work. This hits all the right beats and delivers just a little more than expected as well. We get the expected suplexes but we get a nice little wrinkle that we haven’t really seen much of in this modern Lesnar run. Lashley just fully no sells Lesnar’s Germans in the opening moments of this, hell he even gets to hit Lesnar with a German of his own. It’s a neat little reversal all on its own but it also helps put across the narrative that these two are equals.
In fact, all the ring work and structuring does a pretty good job at that. Sure, we eventually get the Suplex City control segment as we always do. But even that works because Lashley’s landing at some really grody, unnatural angles that lend a nice air of brutality to things. And then, when he’s finally able to get some room, he locks in the Hurt Lock which Lesnar is unable to break. Even without the eventual shenanigans, it’s not beyond the realm of kayfabe possibility that Lashley might have won this thing, by submission of all things.
As for the shenanigans themselves? I can understand if it takes away from the match for some. I didn’t mind it so much. I thought Roman performed well in the moment, and the confirmation that the eventual Mania rematch between these two finally unfolds with the proper heel/face alignment is tantalizing in its own right. And in the end, Lashley still gets the win and the belt.
It’s a neat piece of work all in all, pretty efficiently hitting all the points it needed too with the joy of some disgusting German bumps to go with it as well. A win in my books.
