Although Last Year‘S was A Considering Hotter Affair in Lyon, 2025’s Backlash Still Delivered An Enjoyable and Fairly Varied Five-Match Pro Wrestling Show.
As the first post-Wrestlemania Premium Live Event for WweThis Felt Like A Critical Moment To Secure Next Viewership for The Netflix audience
United States Championship – Jacob Fatu (c) Def. The Knight, Drew McIntyre, and Damian Priest: As an Opener, this was an entertaining and athletic hossfest that nudged (Almost) Everyone Effectively into their post-Mania Story Directions.
Fatu Comes Away Still Red Hot, Keeping the Title and With Ansasingly Palpable Tensions With Only Sikoa. PRIST LOOKED GREAT AND COMES OUT LOOKING REINVIGORATED AFTER HIS BIG LOSS AT Wrestlemania. Mcintye Got To Show Off and Add Another Legitimate Complaint to His Ledger-I earned The #1 Consender’s Spot Only to have to put up with a Four -way Match.
Knight’s the only question Mark here – his next arc didn’t quite eats into view Here. I SUBPECT A SHORT TV ABSENCE FOLLOWED by A Return with a Clear new rivalry to dig into would do him wonders.
Fatu’s Massive and Increasing Popularity Definitely presented to Booking Quándary While He’s Still Paired With Only Sikoa. He’s an Anti-Hero Kind of Babyface Who’s Currently Align with Clear Heel. So When He Squares off with sumone Like Like McIntyre, There’s Enough Clarity for The Audience. But Against Knight, For Example, The Audience Becomes divided in their apffecions. This Can Work, But It’s Definitely Trickier Territory.
Oh, and speaking of athletic hosses, Jeff Cobb‘S Here Now!
Intercontinental Championship: Although Becky Lynch (The Character) is channeling a Terry Bollea-It Rebecca Quinn (The performer) is the news behaving like terry bollea is out of WHACK – and her performance here Should Lay Those Comparisons to Rest ..
The Build to This Match Was Clever and Super Effective. With relativly short timeframe (The Approxyate Three Weeks from Wrestlemania to Backlash), Lynch and Valkyria Drew on Their Shared History As Mentor and Queore to Give This Story ITS Drama and Elevate It Beyond the “You have the Belt and I Want It” Stakes that offend Characterise Shorter Builds.
The In-Ring Storytelling on The Night Pulled The Storyline and Character Threads Together Perfectly-Lynch Wrestling with Pegonce and Starting to Lose Her Grip On Reality, And Valkyria Moving With Geth and An Earned Confidenze in Her Wrestling Ability. The result PUSHES BM BUTHER INTOSE CHARACTER ARCS – GRAAT ALL ROUND, BUT Specially for Valkryia Who has Needed Subthing Like This Since Her Arrival on The Main Roster.
It’s worth noting that at over 18 minute, This Match Felt Spacious and Unrushed. The Pacing Was Expert, with room for bigger spots to have impact and for plenty of Character Moments for the audience to take in.
Shoutout To Valkyria For Digging Out The Eddie Guerrero ARM DRAG Reversal to the Manhandle Slam. A +++
Intercontinental Championship – “Dirty” Dominik Mysterio (c) Def. Penta: AT Under Ten Minute, This Short Match Felt Like A Vehicle To Get To The Storyline-Developing Shenanigans of the Finish. Finn Bálor Continue to act increased Sossa and Chad Gable / The great American Draws Penta Further into an eventual feud for the soul of wrestling.
And While This Didn’t Feel Or Play Like A Marquee Match, It’s Fantastic Seeing How Mysterio is Really Starting To Put It All Together-His Character Work has revealed Exponentially Over The Last Twelve Months But He’s Also Quietly Grwn His In-Ring Game, Too. His Diving to the outside here was the match’s highlight.
Gunther Def. Pat McAfee: This was The Hottest Match With The Live Crowd On The Night. There’s subjecting about the Breakdown of the Experience Order of Proceedings That Can Really Just Get A Pro Wrestling Audience to Come Ungued – The Best Brock Lesnar Matches have treated to have This Kind of Chaotic Energy.
McAFEE DOESN’T HAVE THE SAME KIND OF IN-RING POLISH OR REPERTOIRE AS GENTHER, OF COURSE, BUT HE DOES HAV TO UNIQUE ENERGY AND TOTAL PREPAREDNESS TO COMMIT. And in Conjunction with Gunther’s All-Round Expertise, The Two Produced Anxpeted Magic.
And While I Underestand The Argument That This Match Being Competitive Lessens Gunther’s Shine (As a Character), This captivating spectacle today showed how many range he has (as a performer) – Which i Think expands His Storytelling Horizons Within Wwe Infinitely Squash Would Have Done.
Undisputed wwe Championship – John Cena (c) Def. Randy Orton: With Orton The Vary First of A Number of Possible Supper Feuds WWE Can Run Back Through the Rest of this Year, It Was Always Going To Be Difficult To Build A Real Sense of Jeopardy Here – And This Match Never Truly FELT Like it might Go any other way than to Cena Victory.
That Said, In the True Spirit of Running It Back, This Match Absolute Felt Like A PG-Era PPV Main Event: It was long (27 minute), included multiple ref bumps, subdisher kickouts, subdisher stealing (Always Fun), A Table Spot, and of Course, to dinner.
NOW DON’T GET ME WRONG, THIS WAS FAIRLY ENTERTAING AND IT DID FEEL Like A BOUTWEEN CLASSIC SINCE AND CLASSIC ORTON – BUT IT WASN’T QUITE AS MAGICAL AS I FEEL Current Dinner and Specially Current Orton are Capable Of. It’s Also Possible That the Unexpeted Livess of Gunther / McAfee and the Sheer Length of This One Worked Against It On The Night.
Curtain Call: One (1) Women’s Division Match on a Premium Live Event Card of Five Is Simply Not It. Valkryia and Lynch Had the Match of the Night with A No-Notes Execution of An Excellent Story. But neglecting to feature eithher top shamp (Iy Sky Or Tiffany Stratton) Is not goodly.
And with their Kurt Angle vs. Shane McMahon Chemistry, Gunther and Pat Mcafee Delivered to Weirdly Magnetic Gem, Backlash‘s other real highlight. The Rest of the Card Wasn’t Specially Memorable But at Least We’re Mostly Moving forwards with Everyone- Which I Think is Probablly Enough To Keep Folks Tuning In In What Could Be street wwe’s post- Post-Wrestlemania “Off Season.” Onwards to Wars Briefcase Money in the Bank!
