Is Cody Rhodes' arm injury real? Find out after Brock Lesnar's vicious assault on WWE RAW

Tonight's WWE RAW kicked off with a clip featuring Brock Lesnar's brutal backstage assault on Cody Rhodes. The Beast blindsided his rival as he made his way to the arena, eventually smashing his arm with a supposed beer keg. He later laid out an Open Challenge for Night of Champions after claiming Rhodes won't be able to participate.

The American Nightmare did return to confront the 10-time world champion but got caught in the Kimura Lock. Fans were left devastated as Brock Lesnar seemingly broke Cody's arm on television. Triple H did want to cancel the match at Night of Champions, but Rhodes insisted that he wanted to fight.

Despite Brock Lesnar's claims of having an Open Challenge this Saturday, the originally scheduled match remains on the card. This signifies that Cody Rhodes' arm injury is purely for storyline purposes. Legit injuries rarely occur in scripted segments, and Lesnar has pulled off kayfabe 'breaking' arms on television multiple times in the past.

In April 2012, Lesnar infamously 'broke' Triple H's arm during an episode of WWE RAW. The Beast once again broke his arm at SummerSlam and later gave a similar treatment to Shawn Michaels. Neither HBK nor The Game were legitimately hurt and the actions were only to put Brock over as a heel while also adding drama to the storyline.

Given the events on the WWE RAW go-home show, Cody Rhodes is expected to somehow make it to Night of Champions. The storyline injury will do him no good though. Brock is expected to win the upcoming match, taking advantage of the broken arm, and resulting in an ultimate showdown at SummerSlam in August.

---

Despite Brock Lesnar standing as a roadblock on WWE RAW, Cody Rhodes is fixated on defeating Roman Reigns

SmackDown stars Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa challenged Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, who are on WWE RAW, to a match at Night of Champions. This means there are some loopholes in the 2023 Draft's established system.

Cody Rhodes has his hands full with The Beast Incarnate, but he might be shifted to the blue brand eventually and have the rematch with Reigns that he so desires.

During an interview with GameSpot, The American Nightmare revealed that he hasn't forgotten about his rematch against The Tribal Chief.

"That's a huge, huge, huge rematch [...] It's probably the rematch that and the match in general that WWE wants the most, but it could also be the most difficult to get to. So right now what's laid in front of me is Brock Lesnar--can't look past that."

Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar is expected to be one of the Triple Main Event bouts at Night of Champions 2023.