WWE Hot Take: Why Brock Lesnar Must Beat Cody Rhodes at Backlash

Outside of the more pessimistic portions of the pro wrestling fanbase, the idea of Brock Lesnar beating Cody Rhodes at Backlash on Saturday night seems nigh-unfathomable.

But it needs to happen.

WWE has elected to take a slow-burn approach to rebuilding Rhodes into an underdog sort of role that will eventually tackle a typical hero's journey before getting a rematch with unified champion Roman Reigns.

Rhodes just up and beating Lesnar on the first try would accelerate things a little too quickly.

It's not that Rhodes isn't believable in the ring with Lesnar. He was in marquee spots internationally and within AEW before returning to WWE and looking every bit the equal of Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania 39.

But this is still about character and spacing reasons.

Rhodes isn't ready for Lesnar in the sense he's a little too good, if not naive. Fans saw it well enough during what many thought was his ascension to top guy. He wasn't prepared for and/or didn't handle interference from those around Reigns well at 'Mania. On the Raw right after, it hardly got mentioned, and he then believed the utmost good in Lesnar when everyone else watching knew better than to do that. He got brutally betrayed.

Even John Cena at the height of Super Cenadom could dial back into that heelish rapper gimmick and get grimy when needed. It just feels like Rhodes is a little too pristine, which could end up hurting him in the minds of fans eventually if there isn't some development there. "Learning" these lessons against Lesnar could work.

Few things are more important in pro wrestling than timing. Rhodes simply overcoming Lesnar would immediately have fans asking when he'll take on Reigns. At SummerSlam? A somehow-prolonged feud until WrestleMania 40? A Money in the Bank briefcase?

The problem now is that if WWE wants to keep Rhodes and Reigns apart longer than after Backlash and have the former beat Lesnar, anything that comes next would feel meaningless.

That includes the new heavyweight championship introduced by Triple H recently. Rhodes up and deciding to go for that one would feel like him chasing a consolation prize—a stigma the belt is already attempting to fight off as it is because, if we're being honest, WWE should have never unified the titles in the first place.

It would also dash Rhodes' credibility if, after making it clear his goal was to win the belt his father never did, he simply threw in the towel on that and pursued another. What's the reason? He can't bend the "roster split" rules everyone else seems to with the utmost ease?

If it feels like a no-win situation, it sort of is. This is the corner WWE backed itself into when booking Reigns over Rhodes. That's not to say Reigns shouldn't have won, but if the plan is still to have Rhodes be the one to dethrone him, they got him involved far too early.

The nice thing about pro wrestling is creativity can ease a lot of problems. Rhodes losing to Reigns, then Lesnar, isn't some disaster scenario that signals the end of his time in the main-event scene. Fans play a role, and they will inevitably stay behind Rhodes. Some storytelling-flexing that eventually links Reigns and Lesnar through one Paul Heyman, for better or worse, is one way to keep fans engaged and behind Rhodes.

We also have to touch on the impact a loss could have on Lesnar. Sure, he could lose and just disappear for a while to ease the burden of a loss. But a clean loss to a non-heel wouldn't feel great.

This doesn't even have to be complicated. There's an outside chance Lesnar and Rhodes don't even main event in Puerto Rico. That's prime material for Lesnar to straight-up cheat or take a cowardly way out, hitting an illegal shot before an F5 when he was otherwise about to lose, setting up a rematch (or two) at a later date.

Keep in mind this is also a Triple H-led creative, and those familiar with his NXT days know all too well the trials and tribulations his eventual babyface champions had to overcome. A loss to Lesnar and needing to creatively keep Rhodes out of the new title scene might mean this is just the beginning of dragging the eventual champion through the mud.

In the moment, Rhodes hitting a losing streak and getting wrapped up in a long-term program with Lesnar might feel problematic. But like the entire Reigns saga—and Rhodes own journey back to WWE—this has always been about the long game.

An event like Backlash feels like a marquee stepping-stone moment for a feud as headlining as Rhodes-Lesnar anyway, making it all come together nicely as the underdog story really gets going in earnest.