You don't defeat Brock Lesnar so much as you slay him, and that's exactly what The American Nightmare did tonight.
Heading into their highly anticipated grudge match, the WWE's leading contender against Roman Reigns knew that he had to do everything possible to take down The Beast Incarnate and that's exactly what he did.
After finishing his entrance, Rhodes didn't even give his opponent the opportunity to get inside the ring before he started wailing at him in a scene reminiscent of what Lesnar did to Rhodes at the RAW after WrestleMania.
Despite his best opening efforts, however, Lesnar proved to be too strong and too powerful for Rhodes to simply take out by conventional means.
Throwing shades of Brock Lesnar vs John Cena at SummerSlam 2014, Brock threatened to put Rhodes in an absurd amount of suplexes. After realizing that he was at the end of his ropes, Rhodes exposed the turnbuckle at the side of the ring, where he later sent Lesnar head first, leaving him bloodied and literally seeing red. From then on, Rhodes hit Lesnar with a series of cutters and even a Cross Rhodes. Even then, this wasn't enough to take down Lesnar, as he retaliated with a resounding F5 and put Rhodes in the Kimura Lock to try and get him to tap out.