On Saturday, May 10th, emanating from the Enterprise Centre in St Louis, Missouri was WWE Backlash. Following on from WrestleMania, the biggest show of the wrestling calendar is never an easy task, and this year that challenge was bigger than ever with so little time between WrestleMania & Backlash (only 3 weeks). And on a side note, we generally have a really packed schedule for the recent future with another Saturday Night’s Main Event show set to take place in 2 weeks on May 23rd and then also Money in the Bank taking place 2 weeks after that on June 7th. But getting back on topic, Backlash was a fitting card, with every match on the show in some way reflecting the “Backlash” of events that transpired over the week of WrestleMania.
First on the card was a Fatal Four Way, which saw Jacob Fatu defending his United States Championship against Drew Mcintyre, Damian Priest & LA Knight (YEAH!). Fatu of course won the Championship from Knight at WrestleMania, and Priest/Mcintyre were coming off their Sin City Street Fight at Mania. And despite being a Fatal Four Way match, often the match seemed like 2 distinct singles matches, with Priest & McIntyre eventually taking each other out of the match entirely, fighting into the crowd and Priest hitting a South of Heaven off some storage boxes through 2 tables. And LA Knight was putting up a decent fight against Fatu, however, as often happens with The Bloodline, the numbers game proved too much. As Solo Sikoa got involved and Knight while going after him, was blindsided by Jeff Cobb, who you may know from his time in New Japan Pro Wrestling. This allowed Fatu to get the win and retain his title, however he seemed blindsided by the whole thing and looked like he had no idea Solo had roped in Cobb, and seemed frustrated that his victory was down to outside interference.
Next, Lyra Valkyria defended her Women’s Intercontinental Championship against Becky Lynch. Becky of course won the Womens Tag Championships with Valkyria at WrestleMania but assaulted her the following night after dropping the Titles back to Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez. Also revealing that she was the one who assaulted Bayley prior to WrestleMania and took her off the card. Valkyria put in a strong display against Becky, surviving plenty of her worst offense and managing to squeeze a win countering a pin attempt from Becky into a victory. However, Becky immediately continued to viscously attack Valkyria after the match, clearly infuriated that she’d let the win slip from her grasp.
Following that, Dominik Mysterio put his Intercontinental Championship on the line against Penta. This of course was the second time Penta was challenging for the title, his previous match with Dominik ending with Dom sneaking a win following the return & interference of JD McDonough. As expected, The Judgement Day got involved again, however initially it seemed that they had been foiled as Balor was caught by the referee grabbing a steel chair and he, McDonough & Carlito were all ejected. Balor continued to distract the referee, which meant they did not notice El Grande Americano on the other side of the ring headbutt Penta off the Middle Rope, leaving the door open for Dominik to hit a Frog Splash and again escape Penta by the skin of his teeth with his Intercontinental Championship in tow. And somewhere, Chad Gable must have been thrilled watching Penta getting screwed over given his dislike for Luchador’s (yet some will still claim he’s El Grande Americano).
The penultimate bout saw Pat McAfee bravely step up to fight Gunther. Gunther weeks ago, after losing his World Heavyweight Championship to Jey Uso, took out his aggression on Michael Cole & Pat McAfee. McAfee then asked to face Gunther to stick up for Cole. And as many assumed would happen it was a majorly one-sided affair. Gunther could have ended the match at any moment, but spent a lot of time toying with McAfee and brushing off anything McAfee tried to do. Eventually, despite attempted interference from Michael Cole, Gunther did eventually put McAfee to sleep and win the match. And after the match, he showed McAfee respect for having the courage to step in the ring with him and despite being outclassed, never giving up.
And in the main event, in a match which if you told me 7 years ago, I wouldn’t believe would happen in 2025 and that I would be excited for it. Randy Orton in front of his hometown crowd challenged John Cena for the WWE Championship. Orton stepping to Cena to try and get the WWE Championship back to prevent Cena from taking the belt with him at the end of the year so he can “ruin wrestling”. If you’ve ever watched WWE in the last 10-20 years, I’m sure I don’t need to explain the history of John Cena & Randy Orton, and how they’re relationship/rivalry is as eternal as Batman vs Joker, or Mario vs Bowser. And for what is their last time ever competing, both men put it all on the line to definitively go down as the superior wrestler. Throughout multiple AA’s, RKO’s, table spots, referee bumps and more. The definitive moment came when Randy Orton went to hit a Punk on Cena only for R-Truth to slide into the ring to protect his childhood hero (before promptly eating an RKO for his effort). This distraction gave Cena just enough time to hit a low blow & belt shot on Orton to keep him down for a 3 count and win the match.
And for the first time I believe ever, the physicality continued into the post show, as Cena was interrupted during his segment of the conference by R-Truth congratulating him but quickly angering Cena by mentioning the fans belief that he can’t wrestle. And ending up with Cena hitting another Attitude Adjustment on Truth through the table, before leaving without another word.
In closing, Backlash went seemingly as quickly as it came. But it was a show that simultaneously maintained the status quo as no titles changed hands but gave us paths to follow going into SNME, MITB etc,. But most importantly, whatever you feel about John Cena, he maintained his word and made sure Childhoods died that night, at least the childhood of R-Truth (just ignore that Truth is older than Cena).
