Lesnar/HHH in theory had some good elements, but fuck me it was sooooooooooooooooo boring. HHH was never going to bump around and let Lesnar beat him like Cena did, so instead we got Brock working over the arm, and despite the work being good and fitting into the story....Lesnar just looked like a more aggressive Del Rio. The Cena match was unlike anything we'd seen for years, whereas this match despite being billed as the fight of the year didn't really feel that different to HHH/Punk or HHH/Taker. It was the same drawn out, slow plodding 'EPIC' HHH main event which just dragged and went too long.
Lesnar should be killing people, things like him attempting a cradle and working holds just seemed so out of place for 'a monster looking to hurt people'. At least when he injured Cena's arm at ER it was done in a snap fashion off of the Kimura, and put over Lesnar could kill you at any moment, rather than Lesnar just working a drawn out limb segment. Like I said it was good pyschology from a story standpoint, but it should have been a frantic pace to put over the hate, rather than some plodding and drawn out 'DRAMATIC MATCH'. Table spot and Lesnar's selling was excellent, but again would have worked much better if HHH had been like Cena and had little to no offence prior, I get they want to work some start where HHH 'gets in Lesnar's head' but the Cena deadlift powerslam out of the Kimura spot worked so well because despite being an amazingly impressive visual, it was the first real bit of offence he landed that hurt Lesnar. The table spot here was very well done, but HHH had largely been working even or not far behind Lesnar that it just didn't feel as big a hope spot as it could have been, HHH never looked as vulnerable as Cena did throughout the ER match and whilst I know we were never going to get a match close to Cena/Lesnar here, I just wished my predicition about HHH insisting on Lesnar working a slower pace hadn't come off. They made this personal and talked it up as a match which could end HHH's career, but did he honestly look anymore vulnerable than he did at Wrestlemania? Its like they wanted us to believe this was a career defining match and something horrific to watch...but they never wrestled or incorporated spots to reflect that.
HHH got banged up admittedly, but Cena looked like he was on the verge of being annihalated throughout the ER match, and this was coming off of a 3 week feud where they had one pull apart brawl, and Lesnar F-5ing Cena a couple of times. This had 3x the length in build, was far more personal in having Lesnar break HHH and HBK's arm...and yet the match had about 1/10th of the animosity and raw violence that Cena/Lesnar had. Again, it just goes back to HHH wanting to build the feud around this personal war but not wanting to eat the beating that would reflect that. And again, brawls/fights of this nature have to be excellent naturally, you can't work a slow pace and try to sell the drama, it just has to come naturally from the quick pace and big bumps. You watch a Lawler/Dundee match and it feels naturally dramatic, you see a HHH 'brawl' and it just feels so much damn slower and trying to capture this essence of 'emotion' and it just feels tame in comparison. I realise that's the WWE main event style, but holy god damn does it really show in a match like this. Finish made Brock look strong.