“I’m Better Than You, And You Know It”

"Every Man Has A Price For The Million Dollar Man"

"The Best There Is, The Best There Was, And The Best There Ever Will Be"

"Whatcha Gonna Do, When Hulkamania Runs Wild On You"

"And That's The Bottom Line Because Stone Cold Said So"

<p><strong>Preview:</strong> The first co-branded ppv of 2018 features AJ Styles defending his WWE Championship against Shinsuke Nakamura in a No Disqualifications Match, Roman Reigns against Samoa Joe, SmackDown Women’s Champion Carmella against Charlotte Flair, and more. Read our detailed WWE Backlash 2018 Results &amp; Review below.</p>
<p>Date: May 6th, 2018</p>
<p>Location: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudential_Center" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prudential Center, Newark, N.J.</a></p>
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<h3><strong>Meh (With a High Tone)</strong></h3>
<p class="episode-feed-card--title"><em>(Ruby Riott def. Bayley &#8211; Kickoff Match)</em></p>
<p>For a show-opener, it was not bad. They were given quite a bit of time, and Bayley vs Riott turned out to be a fun little match. The inferences from Sarah Logan and Liv Morgan, as well as the Bayley-Banks stuff added a bit more umph to the entire ordeal.</p>
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<h3><strong>Show-Stealer</strong></h3>
<p><em>(Intercontinental Champion Seth Rollins def. The Miz)</em></p>
<p>The Miz vs Seth Rollins had set way too high a bar for the rest of the card to top. The quality of the match was awesome (no pun intended), reversals were abound, and the execution was top-notch. We really could not find much superlative adjectives to describe the match.</p>
<p>But there was one thing we did not like about that cracker of a bout: Its outcome. It was very much set as soon as The Miz had been shaken up to Smackdown Live, and Rollins was not. Seth just won the Intercontinental Championship at The Grandest Stage of Them All, so “There is no way Seth is losing the title that early”. And our speculations turned out to be correct, thus making the fantastic showdown between two of WWE’s most fantastic workers fall a tad short of being the full-package masterpiece.</p>
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<h3><strong>Hello, Is This WrestleMania?</strong></h3>
<p><em>(Raw Women’s Champion Nia Jax def. Alexa Bliss)</em></p>
<p>Another match with a very predictable outcome. Nia Jax made short work with Alexa Bliss who only offered little resistance. Now that Nia had decisively defeated Five Feet of Fury for a second time, The Twisted Bliss had been effectively swept out of contention for the RAW’s Women’s Championship, there is only 1 worthwhile opponent left for Nia Jax in her featured Summerslam match, and we all know what we are thinking of #Ronda vs Nia</p>
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<h3><strong>*Yawning Intensifies*</strong></h3>
<p><em>(United States Champion Jeff Hardy def. Randy Orton)</em></p>
<p>Legit yawned 10 times during the writing of this paragraph. See, that is what you get when you essentially give the audience (who are much, <em>much </em>smarter than they were 20 years ago by the way) the result of a match 2 weeks in advance. It just will not draw once it stops getting exciting, and the sports entertainment industry is all about keeping excitement levels high. This spoiler of sorts had happened for the third time in a row so far, and knowing to a certain degree of accuracy of who was going to win really took away the suspense of watching a wrestling match. Hell, Hardy vs Orton was not even that entertaining to begin with. Let us hope this theme of predictability for championship matches not continue in the future.</p>
<p>Oh oh it is coming… *11<sup>th</sup> yawn*</p>
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<h3><strong>Bitter Goliath</strong></h3>
<p><em>(Daniel Bryan def. Big Cass)</em></p>
<p>The classic storyline of David overcoming Goliath was played out here, and the twist post-match where Big Cass ran roughshod over a celebrating Daniel Bryan was pretty standard, too. The in-ring quality was not terrible, but nothing that screamed Match of the Year. However, it was good for what it was – the reintroduction of The American Dragon into the Smackdown Live roster.</p>
<p>Here is hoping for grander things waiting ahead.</p>
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<h3><strong>Queen Clean’d</strong></h3>
<p><em>(SmackDown Women’s Champion Carmella def. Charlotte Flair)</em></p>
<p>OH GOD DID CHARLOTTE FLAIR JUST GET PINNED CLEAN BY CARMELLA?</p>
<p>Now that was some real surprise. We all thought Charlotte was surely going to win, or if Carmella won, she would need to pull off some cheeky tricks, but no. She just took advantage of a bad landing and made the pin. 1, 2, 3, clean as a whistle. This win helped Carmella a lot. She had been portrayed as this cowardly heel who always resorted to underhanded tactics to get the W, and with the recently-formed alliance between Carmella and The Iconics, we feared the habit would manifest itself again at Backlash.</p>
<p>However, as we saw it, The Princess of Staten Island got an unblemished victory over one of the top 2 women of Smackdown Live. This was a much-needed successful title defense for Carmella, and we can finally see her as a legitimate competitor.</p>
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<h3><strong>LOWBLOW ‘MANIA</strong></h3>
<p><em>(WWE Champion AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura ended in a No Contest)</em></p>
<p>Ending a No DQ AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura match for the WWE Championship with a DOUBLE LOWBLOW no contest really should have been the 8<sup>th</sup> deadly sin, but this one was so unexpected, so innovative, and so funny that we will let them off this time. Before that comical ending, Styles and Nakamura actually put on a really good match. Miles ahead of their WrestleMania and Greatest Royal Rumble bouts, for sure. Moreover, this jocular and opened-ended finish almost guaranteed Nakamura vs Styles IV, which will, hopefully, be the perfect 5-star spectacle everyone has been hoping for and the wholesome end to this shambles of a feud.</p>
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<h3><strong>Total Domination</strong></h3>
<p><em>(Braun Strowman &amp; Bobby Lashley def. Kevin Owens &amp; Sami Zayn)</em></p>
<p>Did anyone really think Sami and Kevin even stand the slightest of a chance against Lashley and Strowman? Size and strength differences aside, the inner disputes between Kevin and Sami had never been properly resolved and could pop right back to the surface whenever faced with a predicament. That was exactly what happened at Backlash, since not only they were outpowered by the almighty pairing of Strowman and Lashley, Zayn and Owens actually had a rhubarb as to who would be taking the inevitable finishers for the loss, adding yet another chapter to this never-ending on again, off again relationship.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Bobby Lashley and Braun Strowman looked invincible, and showed no signs of cracking, so it would be very interesting if they decided to follow the tag champs until Summerslam.</p>
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<h3><strong>An Underwhelming Main Event</strong></h3>
<p><em>(Roman Reigns def. Samoa Joe)</em></p>
<p>Backlash ended with a match that fell short of expectations.</p>
<p>We shall try our best to justify our stance without moaning about the fact that Samoa Joe actually lost clean after all the fantastic trash-talking he had been doing the past month. We understand that WWE was trying to create another controversial situation regarding Roman Reigns (it looked like he tapped out of Samoa Joe’s Coquina Clutch at one point), and the pre-match assault by Samoa Joe was admittedly brutal for a pre-match assault, but everything else, especially the ending, looked straight out an episode of Monday Night RAW. Really good, solid stuff, but not so good that people would remember this event for.</p>
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<p>                In fact, it would have been better if Joe vs Reigns had been the show-<em>opener</em>, not the show-closer.</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><strong>Interesting stuff but not really worthy of their own entries</strong></h3>
<p>Elias, The New Day, Aiden English, No Way Jose, Titus Worldwide, Breezango, and Bobby Roode basically had a festival together, Mardi Gras style. You know, topless. Should have done that back in New Orleans, guys.</p>
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<p>That double nut kicks by Styles and Nakamura were perfectly synced (and placed). True art.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><strong>Overall Review:       </strong></h3>
<p>The word “predictable” could be used for half the matches. “Underwhelming” could be used for most others. The only positive stuff coming out of Backlash, really, was Carmella’s clean win over Charlotte Flair and the fantastic Rollins vs Miz match. That much pretty much tells you how we think of Backlash. The writers must have gotten sick of booking PPVs by now – after all, they did 3 in a month. Heh, we guess even the wrestlers themselves started to get tired of fighting at PPVs.</p>

WWE Backlash 2018 Results & Review

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