For as long as his career has lasted in the WWE, some 15 years, few competitors have ever looked as invincible as Brock Lesnar.
He has suplexed his way past nearly every opponent, sometimes beating them into an insignificant shell of what they thought they were. Look no further than John Cena and Randy Orton in recent years. Yes, it's true Goldberg squashed Lesnar last year at Survivor Series, but Lesnar got his revenge months later at WrestleMania.
Still, Lesnar has never faced anyone with the size and sheer strength of Braun Strowman. And that includes The Undertaker.
Right from the start Sunday night at WWE No Mercy, Strowman tossed Lesnar around like a ragdoll. A choke slam nearly ended the bout just a minute in at Staples Center in Los Angeles, but Lesnar recovered, if only for a few moments. Lesnar went for but missed an F5, only for Strowman to throw him out of the ring.
Once he came back in, Lesnar quickly changed tactics. Instead of going for an explosive array of suplexes, he locked in a kimura arm-bar submission, which changed the trajectory of the match. Lesnar had finally slowed his bigger opponent, enough so that he could convert five straight German suplexes. Yet, that wasn't enough to barely rattle this mountain of a man -- or so we thought.
Strowman countered with a couple of running powerslams, but he was favoring the arm that was locked into the kimura and was unable to fully capitalize. Strowman's momentum was short-lived as Lesnar caught him with an F5, and that was it.
The end result isn't all that surprising, though a win for Lesnar without nefarious tactics was a little startling considering the way the WWE had portrayed Strowman for the entire year. It seems that this rivalry isn't close to ending, and Raw certainly doesn't have a dearth of competitors for Lesnar.
Even though it seems titles are changing hands at a much quicker pace in recent months, the WWE creative team has been meticulous about its marketing of Strowman. Further, on a night in which Roman Reigns likely sent Cena into a long layoff, it would have seemed out of place for Strowman to finally have his big moment and overshadow that storyline.