Brock Lesnar turns main event into disturbing beatdown

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — The first pay-per-view clash between Brock Lesnar and Randy Orton was billed as a dream match 15 years in the making. It only took about 15 minutes to turn into a nightmare when Lesnar pounded his opponent into a gory mess, earning a near-unprecedented TKO victory over The Apex Predator before destroying an authority figure to cap off his assault.

The Viper squares up with The Beast Incarnate before the bell rings.

The shocking ruling by WWE officials was a merciful conclusion to what was easily the most impressive instance of snake extermination since St. Patrick. Lesnar made it clear early on he had abandoned all pretense of defeating Orton, opting instead to conquer him in the most medieval sense of the word. In many ways, it was a logical culmination of both Lesnar’s last four years in WWE and this match in particular, which began with Brock charging Orton into the corner while The Viper pounded away at his opponent’s back in hopes of creating some separation.

Lesnar strikes first, driving Orton into the corner.

Orton knew going into the match that his outta-nowhere equalizer of the RKO would be his only hope. Unfortunately for him, the wind was sucked from his sails when an early attempt at the move fell flat, literally, as Lesnar simply stepped backwards and shoved Orton to the mat from midair the second The Viper sprang up to hit it. With Orton having taken the full brunt of his own maneuver, Lesnar administered a German suplex before charging him into the corner and suplexing him again. Brock refused to allow The Apex Predator to gain any kind of momentum — let alone the breathing room he would require to connect with an RKO.

Orton goes for an RKO and misses, as The Beast avoids the maneuver and sends his foe falling to the mat.

Lensnar took Orton on this grisly tour of Suplex City for six cycles before The Viper rolled out of the ring and tried to throw hands. He got a body slam atop the SmackDown Live announce table for his troubles. When Orton attempted to seek shelter in the front row, The Beast threw him like dead weight back onto the table, which crumbled beneath Orton.

The Beast briefly took the fight back into the ring for a seventh suplex, before returning to the outside and stripping the Raw announce table of its trappings in order to prepare it for annihilation.

Ironically, this led to the one point in the match where The Viper seemed like he might pull it off. Before Lesnar could drive Orton through the table, The Apex Predator uncoiled with a wicked RKO that flattened The Conqueror. The Viper came out smiling, if not entirely upright, from the exchange, and suddenly the match was a ballgame.