WWE Backlash (May 2018)

Original Airdate: May 6, 2018

From Newark, New Jersey; Your Hosts are Michael Cole and Jonathan Coachman (RAW), Tom Phillips and Byron Saxton (Smackdown), and Corey Graves sitting in with both teams

Opening WWE Intercontinental Title Match: Seth Rollins v Miz: Feeling out process to start, dominated by the champion. Seth tries a springboard, but Miz is able to throw a kick as he does, and Rollins takes a spill to the floor. Miz follows to ram the champ into the apron before taking things back inside with a shining wizard for two. Chinlock, but Seth escapes and hooks a schoolboy for two, so Miz drops him with a kneeling DDT for two. Backdrop, but Rollins counters with a sitout facebuster, and adds a reverse STO into the buckles before Miz can recover. Sling blade and a clothesline send the challenger over the top, and Rollins follows with a tope out there. Springboard high knee on the way back in, but Miz catches him in the Skull Crushing Finale - only for Seth to counter with a victory cradle for two. 2^nd rope flying somersault neckbreaker gets two, and a springboard clothesline finds its mark, but Miz manages to slip to the outside to avoid the follow-up, and he sweeps Rollins off the apron in the process. Miz with a flying bodypress on the way back in, but Rollins rolls through into a swinging scrapbuster for two, followed by a flying frogsplash for two. Superkick, but Miz bails to the outside to avoid it, and tries suckering Seth into a chase. Rollins is wise to it, but an attempt at a tope gets blocked with a forearm, allowing Miz to try the kneeling DDT on the apron. Rollins blocks, and tries a high knee out there, but Miz moves, and Seth smacks into the post in the process. Miz takes him right in to capitalize with a figure four, but Seth manages a reversal! Miz rolls through into his own reversal, but now they're in the ropes, and Rollins is quick to grab them to force a break. Miz tries for the hold again, but Rollins blocks this time, so we get a slugfest instead. Seth controls, so Miz kicks the bad knee to set up the Finale, but Rollins blocks, and throws an enzuigiri. He tries another victory cradle, but Miz counters to the Finale for two! Really great sequences here, and Seth is doing a nice job of selling the leg. Miz with a corner clothesline to set up something off the top, but Rollins crotches him up there before we get to find out what, and then brings him down with the superplex into the falcon arrow, but the knee messes the transition up, allowing Miz to counter to another Finale for two! Miz decides to take him up to the middle rope to try a Finale from up there, but Seth manages to shove him off. He dives after the challenger with a flying Curb Stomp, but Miz dodges, causing Seth to tweak the knee further. Miz capitalizes with a rollup for two, but Rollins reverses for two, so Miz tries a schoolboy, but Rollins slips out into the Curb Stomp to retain at 20:30! This was a legitimately great match, with lots of hard work from both guys, using interesting sequences and combinations, while building a story out of the leg. ****

WWE RAW Women's Title Match: Nia Jax v Alexa Bliss: Alexa sticks and moves in the early going, but gets caught in the corner, and avalanched a couple of times before bailing. Bliss manages to kick the champ in the head on the way back in, and she adds a forearm smash for two, before ropechoking her a bit. Alexa works her over, smacking her around and taunting her all the while, but an attempt at a DDT doesn't go well, and Nia clotheslines her down. Somersault senton splash, but Bliss dodges, and keeps slugging to cut down the big tree. Bodypress, but Jax catches her, and carries Alexa into the corner for a Samoan drop off the middle, but Bliss manages to counter with a choke. She rides Nia down in a front-facelock, but Jax powers out, and snapmares her challenger across the ring. Jax tosses her around like a bag of sexy garbage (like, trash from Victoria's Secret, or something), but a 2^nd rope pump-splash is blocked when Bliss shoves her over the top to the floor. Alexa follows for a DDT onto the steps, which seems like flawed strategy considering she needs to win by pin or submission, and she's now got a champion that's twice her size, and dead weight. That's not lost on her either, and watching her throw a tantrum at the referee about it is great. She manages to get Nia in, but by the time she does, it's only worth two. Jax tries getting her up the ropes for the Samoan drop, but Bliss slips out, and sweeps the leg to bring Jax down to earth for two. Twisted Bliss, but Nia catches her in a Samoan drop to retain at 10:18. Nothing special, but Alexa is such a great character that she elevates everything she's involved in with her antics. * ½

WWE United States Title Match: Jeff Hardy v Randy Orton: Feeling out process to start, until Hardy knocks Orton to the outside following a sitout chincrusher, and he dives at the challenger with a flying clothesline off of the apron. Back in, Orton fights him off with a standing dropkick for two, and pounds on him for a while, until Jeff falls out of the ring. Randy follows, but takes too long strutting around, and gets nailed with a leg lariat out there. He still manages to fight Hardy off on the way back in though, again with a dropkick. He drops Jeff front-first across the top rope for two, and it's chinlock time. Hardy escapes and gives him the legdrop to the groin to setup the seated dropkick for two, followed by the Whisper in the Wind for two. Randy tries for the RKO, but Jeff blocks, so he snap powerslams him for two instead. Rope-hung DDT, but Hardy corkscrew kicks his way out of it - only to miss the slingshot kick in the corner. That allows Randy to stick the rope-hung DDT, but Jeff counters the RKO with a sloppy schoolboy for two, and the Twist of Fate sets up the Swanton at 11:51. Dull stuff, with both guys basically just going through the motions. ½*

Daniel Bryan v Big Cass: The fact that Cass landed Carmella in real life should give us all hope. Bryan sticks and moves in the early going, and suckers Cass into charging himself over the top. Daniel blasts him with a baseball slide and a flying high knee off of the apron, followed by a flying dropkick on the way back inside. Bryan unloads with the Yes Kicks, but runs into a spinebuster as he goes for the finale, and Cass hammers him. Bodyslam sets up an elbowdrop for two, and Cass punishes him with an overhead backbreaker submission. Daniel manages to slip free, and he counters a charging Cass with a drop-toehold into the middle turnbuckle. That sets up a series of kicks in the corner, followed by a pair of running dropkicks, but the follow-up is countered by Cass with a pop-up flapjack and a clothesline for two. Cass would have likely been a big star if he came along in the early/mid-90s, just based on his size. Cass beats him with a series of short-clotheslines, but a big boot misses, and Daniel throws a roundhouse kick to set up the Yes Lock at 7:45. Okay for what it was. *

WWE Smackdown Women's Title Match: Carmella v Charlotte Flair: Carmella mocks the Flair strut at the bell, earning her a big boot to the outside. She gets pissed at the disrespect and decides to walk with the belt, but takes too long telegraphing it, and gets cut off at ringside. Back in, Charlotte hooks a small package for two, and a bridging cradle gets two. Figure Four, but Carmella manages to block, so Charlotte clotheslines her, and the champ bails. Flair goes after her with a plancha, but Carmella sidesteps, and plants a superkick on her challenger. Back in, that gets Carmella two, and a series of mounted punches are worth two. Chinlock goes on for a while, as Carmella alternates between running her mouth and sticking her tongue out. She could use some lessons from Alexa. Flair escapes, but a bodyslam gets countered with a rear-matslam, and Carmella rubs Flair's face in the canvas for good measure. Bow-and-arrow follows, but Charlotte escapes with a mulekick, and adds a scrapbuster across her knee. Flair mounts a comeback, but gets tripped up as they go at it on the apron, and dropped neck first onto it. Carmella wraps her around the post for some abuse, but wastes time gloating and trash talking, allowing Charlotte to recover with a spear. Figure Four, but Carmella blocks, so Charlotte tries a somersault cradle instead, but Carmella counters to the Code of Silence. Charlotte powers to a vertical base, but Carmella pops off a victory cradle for two, so Flair drills her with a big boot for two. Figure Four is blocked again, so Charlotte goes up for a flying moonsault press instead, but Carmella dodges, and capitalizes on the tweaked knee by swiping at it with a kick, and cradling at 10:09. This dragged a lot, but the finish worked. *

WWE Title No Disqualification Match: AJ Styles v Shinsuke Nakamura: Nakamura stalls to start, suckering AJ into a chase, then stealing the high ground - all while making faces that just make me hate him as performer even more than I already do. Styles gets frustrated and kicks the crap out of him, hitting a snap suplex for two. Backbreaker connects, so Nakamura throws a thrust to the throat to buy time, but runs into a dropkick as they criss cross. To the outside, AJ rams him into the barricade a few times, but misses a stinger splash against it, and gets tossed into the steps. Back in, Nakamura unloads with a kick combo in the corner, followed by a bootchoke. Kneedrop gets two, and a backdrop is worth two - complete with arrogant cover. Nakamura continues to use the knee like it's going out of style, but AJ escapes a front-facelock, so Nakamura goes right back to the knee to knock him to the outside. Nakamura follows to abuse him on the floor, so AJ tries a springboard off of the rail, but ends up faceplanting when the challenger sweeps the leg. Back in, Nakamura works a chinlock, but AJ fights free. He goes for the Phenomenal Forearm, but gets caught, and draped across the top turnbuckle for a knee. Nakamura with a 2^nd rope flying high knee for two, and a fireman's brainbuster is worth two. Nakamura decides to take advantage of the stipulations by bringing a weapon into play (finally!), in this case a chair. He tees off, but Styles ducks, and a reversal sequence ends in Nakamura hitting an enzuigiri. He adds an inverted exploder suplex onto the chair for two, but AJ blocks Kinshasa with the chair, hurting Nakamura's knee in the process! Well there goes, like, 75% of his offense. Calf Crusher, but Nakamura counters to a triangle choke, but AJ powers to a vertical base, and dumps him over the top as a means of escape. Styles tries a springboard, but Nakamura slides in before he can do it, so AJ changes gears with a fireman's neckbreaker for two. Pele kick sets up the Style Clash, but Nakamura goes low to block. AJ responds in kind, and both guys are left down, cradling their nuts in front of a worldwide audience. If a non-fan walked by right then, and saw two grown men holding their balls and rolling around, I can only imagine what their impression of this sport would be. Slugfest leads to both guys simultaneously trying a kick to the nuts, leaving both down and holding their packages again. And this time neither recovers in time to beat the count, giving us a lame draw at 21:05. This was really boring stuff, even falling well below the mark of their other two disappointing pay per view matches. Can we consider the myth that Nakamura is some amazing worker officially dead? *

Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn v Braun Strowman and Bobby Lashley: Sami and Bobby start, with Zayn taunting him in the early going, before passing over to Kevin. Bobby fights him off and hits a corner spear, followed by a swinging neckbreaker, so Owens bails back to Zayn. Bobby corner clotheslines Sami, but Zayn bails to the outside to avoid a follow-up, so Lashley shoves him into the barricade out there instead. This thing is just not connecting on any meaningful level at all. The heels double up to take control of Lashley on the floor, and they cut the ring in half as the action (and I use that term loosely) heads back in. Anyway, Braun gets the hot tag, and Roseanne Barr the door, yadda yadda, you know the drill. The heels get into it with each other while deciding who should do the job for Braun, and end up coming to blows - allowing Braun to nail Owens for Lashley to finish with a hanging vertical suplex (with extended delay!) at 8:29. Even at under nine minutes, this felt like it went on forever. I'm tempted to give this a little something-something for the cool extended hanging suplex at the end, but it was just so boring that I can't bring myself to. DUD

Main Event: Roman Reigns v Samoa Joe: Joe attacks before the bell, and dumps Roman to the outside for a uranage through an announce table right away. He forces Reigns in so the match can officially begin, and as soon as the bell rings, Joe is right back on him with a series of jabs in the corner. Kneedrop gets two, and he grounds Reigns in an overhead wristlock. Roman starts to escape, so Joe switches to a headvice instead, as the restholds drag on. These fools get the main event, and dive right in on restholds in less than five minutes? No wonder the crowd is shitting on this match. Joe with an enzuigiri for two, then back to the mat for a crossface, and you can literally see people walking out of the building in the background. Can't really blame them, these goobers are working like it's a house show in front of 200 people in Montana somewhere. Joe dumps him to the outside for a tope, then back in to hook the leg for two. Another wristlock, as more of the crowd walks out, while the ones that stay shit all over this. Even the super fan dudes who are in the front row for every show (who may or may not be plants) look bored, and chat amongst themselves instead of watching the match. Reigns escapes for a slugfest, and hits Joe with a big boot to knock him to the outside, where Roman follows for the Drive-By. Inside, Reigns unloads with clotheslines, as some pissed off fan at ringside just holds up two middle fingers to express his feelings on this train wreck. Joe fights him off and hits a senton splash for two, but Reigns blocks the uranage, and hits a spinebuster for two. Superman Punch, but Joe counters with the Coquina Clutch, so Roman drops out of the ring to escape. He tries another Drive-By, but Joe counters with another Clutch, so Reigns counters with a victory cradle for two. Superman gets two, but the spear gets countered with an enzuigiri - only for Roman to rebound with another spear for two. The crowd keeps shitting on this as Reigns tries another spear, but gets countered with another Clutch - only to roll it back into a cradle for two. Rollup gets two, countered by Joe into the Clutch on the kickout, but Reigns makes the ropes. Joe goes for the muscle buster to put this away, but Reigns blocks, and the spear finishes at 18:04. Yeah, so this was a total disaster on every level, and one of the worst pay per view main events in company history. From a technical stance, there were worse matches that closed shows over the years, but perhaps none that so strongly felt like they were actively telling the fan base to go fuck themselves the entire time. DUD

BUExperience: This one started off well enough, and then got progressively worse as it went on, before finally settling into the giant waiving middle finger that was the main event. Check out the opener, avoid the rest.

DUD