Why, yes… I did watch Backlash… for some reason… Mainly for the French… crowd… yeah, that’s it.
So yeah, I was doing some stuff during the weekend and I had this in the background. And right off the bat, I’ll say this; this is the absolute best crowd I’ve seen at a WWE show in forever. They were exciting, they kept the noise level up, and they enjoyed every moment of the show. There was never a “dead” period where the crowd was bored. They kept cheering. That’s the kind of audience that helps a wrestling show elevate from a B-level PPV event to something greater than it actually is… and no better example than this show to demonstrate how much of a real difference that hot crowd made.
Anyway, let’s get it on. My notes on this show will be extremely brief.
The Bloodline (Solo and Tama Tonga) defeated Randy Orton and Kevin Owens with an outside assist from Tanga Loa – the other son of Haku and brother to Tama Tonga. Hell of an opening contest and the molten hot French crowd made it even better. The debut of Tonga Loa was bound to happen sooner or later and both he and Tama are going to be great additions after their long and storied New Japan runs. All of a sudden, the Bloodline is starting to feel a bit interesting and all it took was for Roman to lose that title finally.
WWE Women’s Champion Bayley defeated Glow Girl and Tiffany Stratton to retain the title in a perfectly acceptable triple threat match. The crowd was into it, but the match itself was just there. Maybe it’s because Bayley retaining wasn’t much of a surprise and there was never a point where she was in any real danger of losing, but beyond that, it was just fine.
World Champion Damien Priest defeated Jey Uso to retain the title with help from Priest’s Judgment Day buddies… or are they? He didn’t seem too pleased with the assist. I get trying to make Jey Uso into a credible main eventer without having him outright beat Priest and I didn’t mind the match in general, but it probably would’ve been better as a ten-minute back-and-forth hard-hitting contest with the eventual screwy finish if you wanted to go that route. This felt like it was taking forever to get to the point and that’s not something you want to evoke in a 15+ minute match. Fortunately, the French picked up the slack and made this feel like the greatest wrestling match ever… oh wait, maybe I shouldn’t be saying that because all that does is remind me of that one Edge/Orton match from 2020 and I don’t need any more reminders of THAT match, thanks.
Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill defeated Women’s Tag Team Champions Asuka and Kairi Sane to win the titles in a thing that happened. Bianca was fine. Kana and Kairi were fine. And Jade is just doing the same stuff she did in AEW, which makes me wonder what all that training was for if she’s doing the same stuff she did in the other place and looking none the better for it. Then again, if it ain’t broke…
Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes defeated AJ Styles to retain the title in the main event. Kind of odd to see a main event championship match end with a clean win rather than all sorts of run-ins and interference… and I’m not complaining, either. I’d like more of that, please. Also, I’ll take more of this too. Fun little main event match between former Bullet Club members (which actually gets mentioned on WWE TV) and former NWA World’s Champions (which doesn’t get mentioned on WWE TV… baby steps, I suppose) with more hard-hitting moves and less spamming of the finishers. Hell, I don’t even think AJ came close to doing a Styles Clash here, so there’s no chance of Cody kicking out of that move for no reason whatsoever. I actually didn’t mind that. I’m all for protecting your big finishing move for spots that actually finishes people. And again, the crowd really helped this match feel truly big time… and then they never got tired. They kept cheering. They stayed invested in the show… that’s a sign of a good crowd enhancing a good show.
And that’s just it, actually. If it wasn’t for that crowd, this Backlash show would’ve been just a B-level PPV card that felt more like a televised house show than anything; something to entertain the locals more than anything, but because you had that red-hot French crowd, you had what felt like a house show event seem like a much bigger event in general, which is what you’d want any show you put on air to look like. The crowd was what sold me on a show that I would’ve skipped out on otherwise, so yeah… vive la France, indeed.
Impact’s up tomorrow.
dtm666 