WWE BACKLASH

Tampa, Florida

BRON BREAKKER vs. SETH ROLLINS (21:26): The big story in the WWE is that all of the executives are making record amounts of money, so they decided to fire a bunch of wrestlers because...fuck them, right? The New Day (Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston), The Motor City Machine Guns, the entire Wyatt Family, Jeff Cobb, and Aleister Black and his wife were the big names fired, though they fired a bunch of developmental people, too. It's just weird to fire a ton of people at once when the company is selling out everywhere and making a ton of money thanks to Netflix, Saudi Arabia, and ESPN. And, really, it's the WWE's fault that guys like Jeff Cobb never "got over" because they never even did anything with him. Turning The New Day heel was a dumb idea, too, so was it any surprise that nobody cared about them lately? The one thing I really hate about the WWE since TKO took over is these monotonously bland PPV's with only a few matches, a ton of commercials and breaks between matches, and half the roster mysteriously not on the show. CM Punk, Cody Rhodes, the entire Judgment Day, Becky Lynch, The Uso's, Oba Femi, LA Knight, Drew McIntyre, Gunther, Rhea Ripley, Charlotte Flair, Randy Orton, Stephanie Vaquer, Penta, Dragon Lee, Rey Mysterio and Jade Cargill were not on this show. I did the math, and there was around 80 minutes of actual wrestling and 70 minutes of everything else (entrances, commercials, video packages and John Cena's talking segment) on this show. None of the matches on this show were bad or anything, but none of them were great. This opener was probably the best match. Breakker won, mostly because Rollins was a bit distracted dealing with Logan Paul and Austin Theory at ringside. It seemed like they were pushing Breakker to be a big star and main event draw and champ...but then he didn't beat CM Punk on the first RAW of the year in that title match, and then he got hurt. He does some exciting things in the ring. He did a Jeff Cobb standing moonsault. The match was fast paced. The crowd in Tampa was really hot for this show which helped. **1/2

TRICK WILLIAMS vs. SAMI ZAYN (12:56): One of the more amusing things on WWE TV lately was Sami Zayn dressing up as a gingerbread man and beating up Trick Williams. Then Sami beat up the gingerbread man costume a week later and they had a funeral for him. Before, Backlash usually had rematches from Wrestlemania. This was the only one...and that's too bad, because this was the one Wrestlemania match that no one was dying for a rematch of. The big problem with Trick is that his entrance is everything. Once his entrance is done, his matches are fairly dull. Trick came to the ring with his friend, the rapper Li'l Yachty. Sami eventually used the gingerbread man's candy cane to beat Li'l Yachty with it. No, I don't understand what a gingerbread man has to do with anything. *1/2

DANHAUSEN & MINIHAUSEN vs. KIT WILSON & THE MIZ (11:38): Danhausen seems to be pretty popular with the WWE fans. He was pretty popular in AEW, too. I don't know why Tony stopped using him. Tony seems very vindictive because there's always AEW wrestlers that just disappear still under contract and I'm sure they did something to upset Tony. Danhausen probably did something. Or maybe Tony was just bored of him. I think his comedy skits are fairly entertaining, but I don't exactly want to see him wrestling in a match unless it's a multi-man tag team or something and he's barely in it. Danhausen's mystery partner for this match was a little person that came out of a cloning machine. Eventually, for no good reason, Kit put the little Danhausen back in the cloning machine and out came more little people. Yeah. That happened. What I'm really surprised about is that Kit Wilson wasn't one of the wrestlers fired. The Miz also ended up spraying himself and Kit with a fire extinguisher. *

IYO SKY vs. ASUKA (18:07): This match was supposed to be at Wrestlemania. A lot of fans were glad it wasn't, as at least on this show they would get more time (most of the 'Mania matches were super short). They got more time, but this wasn't anything special. Asuka sprayed mist at Iyo but Iyo grabbed Wade Barrett's notebook to block the mist (this happened on the announce table). That spot was unique. The match never really heated up into anything dramatic or super exciting, though. It was fine. **

JOHN CENA SEGMENT: Remember last year during Cena's retirement tour, they kept saying, 'This is the last time Cena will be in' whatever city RAW or Smackdown was in that day. What a crock of shit. He was in Vegas for 'Mania and he was here, in Tampa, for Backlash. And he came out tonight to announce a new PPV, which will be NXT wrestlers vs. main roster WWE wrestlers. I'm assuming Cena will be at that show, too. While in theory that seems like a good idea to give NXT wrestlers more exposure...I couldn't give two shits about that show. They did that same thing on Cena's lame retirement show and I didn't watch any of those other matches then, either.

ROMAN REIGNS vs. JACOB FATU (17:50): This match made zero sense because after the match they set up THE EXACT MATCH THAT JUST HAPPENED! No, it makes no sense. The match was fine, though nothing great. Is it me, or does Fatu look like he got a lot fatter and out of shape since his debut? And did Michael Cole say that Fatu has 7 kids? Roman won basically by cheating. He tore the pad off the turnbuckle and slammed Fatu into it and the ref saw this. Roman then won with a spear. But after the match, Fatu beat up Roman and all the WWE execs had to run out to stop Fatu. So they're setting up a rematch to a match we just watched. Lame. I guess they have to do that because their next PPV, Clash in Italy, is in three weeks, and God forbid they set up some new feuds/matches in three weeks for that show. I don't know...the WWE just feels really stale and safe these days. It feels like they're not even trying or attempting to have great matches. You can tell because when they do, like with Roman and Punk at 'Mania, it makes people talk about it like it's Ospreay/Takagi or something. & it's not even close. **