WWE Backlash 2025 Discussion

[Kamran]

I thought @Supremo might do this but as the show is almost here, I thought I'd step in 

Countdown to Backlash

Matches

• Undisputed WWE Championship: John Cena (c) vs. Randy Orton
• WWE Women's Intercontinental Championship: Lyra Valkyria (c) vs. Becky Lynch
• Fatal four-way match for the WWE United States Championship: Jacob Fatu (c) vs. LA Knight vs. Damian Priest vs. Drew McIntyre
• WWE Intercontinental Championship: Dominik Mysterio (c) vs. Penta    
• Pat McAfee vs. Gunther

Poster

Hype Videos

Edited May 10, 2025 by Kamran

[FUM]

Coming out to try to wake up a referee rather than sending out one of your, at least, seven other refs makes perfectly logical sense.

[TheScarlettChad]

Cena murdering R Truth then looking at the reporters in absolute silence on the post show press conference was amazing. 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, TheScarlettChad said:

Cena murdering R Truth then looking at the reporters in absolute silence on the post show press conference was amazing. 

I thought it was terrible! Found myself wondering why Truth just sat there on his shoulders. I realise that's true for basically every wrestling move, so I think it highlighted just how important crowd and atmosphere is. 

[Supremo]

Good show.

Fun, action-packed opener. Scary moment near the finish though. Looked like Drew went full Matt Hardy on that big stunt bump at the end, going straight through the table and landing square on the back of his head on the concrete. Hope he’s okay.

Good debut for Jeff Cobb, although quite funny that they’ve immediately stuck him with Bloodline 3.0. Triple H really not helping himself regarding the accusations that he’s a daft old racist. Samoan. Hawaiian. All look the same, don’t they, Paul? Bunch ‘em together!

So that’s Penta, Fenix, Rusev, Aliester Black and Jeff Cobb in a short space of time. I wonder if hardcore WWE fans feel the same way hardcore AEW fans did in 2021/2022, when it felt like a flood of guys were coming in and diluting the product they once loved. Funny that that in both cases there appears to be a direct correlation with your creative direction coming off the rails. Like it’s the default reaction when you start panicking. Look! New guys! Everything is fine! This Malibu Stacy has a new hat!

Good Women’s match. Becky’s act is an embarrassment, and she seems stuck in a mid-2010 time loop, but you can’t knock her for trying to get people over. She couldn’t have given more to Lyra, here. Like the anti-Charlotte Flair. Wonder if Lyra broke her nose at the end. Sure looked like it.

Dirty Dom vs. Penta was your average Raw match. The only thing of note is that Wrestlemania wasn’t an anomaly and Dirty Dom is well on his way to being a huge babyface. Chicken tenders all round!

CM Punk in the advert for the Saudi show is funny enough. The closing shot being of Punk winking was even funnier. “Yes, tell the Prince I’m ready to suck a blood money covered dick. Definitely won’t stage an injury angle three weeks out, honest.”

Go out of your way to watch Gunther vs. McAfee. An amazing bit of business. Everything I hoped it would be given the brilliant build up. Pat is perfect in that he’s clearly athletic and talented enough to pull it off, but looks and performs just shit enough to where it looks legitimately dangerous when he bumps or takes hits. It’s the Grading Curve that cursed Ronda Rousey and Logan Paul. You want to be good enough to where you’re an amazing Celebrity Wrestler, but you don’t want to get too good, at which point you become a below average Normal Wrestler.

Pitch perfect match. Just enough hope spots to have the crowd going crazy, but enough ultimate dominance to confirm Gunther is the Dog’s Bollocks. He looked phenomenal by the end. Completely rehabilitated. What a fantastic Sports Entertainer Gunther has proven himself to be.

This ruled so much, I want it to somehow continue. Have Gunther continue to terrorise Michael Cole, only for Wade Barrett to stand up to him. Pat McAfee must have Goldberg’s phone number. Time to bring in the big boys!

Main event was nothing short of a minor miracle. Cena’s heel turn is an abject failure, he looked like shit at Wrestlemania, and even in their prime these two never had particularly good chemistry. So it was a pleasant surprise to see them seemingly hold their hands up and admit as much, deciding to have the most Smoke and Mirrors bullshit match as possible. Every shortcut in the book, but it mostly worked. Crowd were going mental and I was left in a far better mood than the end of Night Two of Wrestlemania. Bet Cody Rhodes watched enviously. This is the exact type of match they should have had at Mania. Wild bollocks to distract from the huge limitations. Randy Orton was able to hit about ten RKOs in the time Cody had to sit and wait for Travis Scott to stroll down the ramp!

I’d hoped that now they’ve got Orton vs. Cena out of their system they’d move on to guys Cena always had good chemistry with, like CM Punk or AJ Styles, or guys who can likely carry him to something decent, like Sami Zayn. So imagine my surprise when it seems the next feud is with fucking R-Truth. There’s fun to be had with Truth and Cena, but not an actual feud leading to match! When he’s counting down his final few dates, who the fuck wants to see him waste a match with Truth?!

Also, this legitimately looks like a WWE2K25 cut scene. Rubbish.

On the plus side, it seems they’ve announced Cena’s last show will be in December, in Boston. My dream scenario is our hero Sami Zayn wins Money in the Bank and cashes it in on that last show. Finally wins the big one. Saves the company. Saves the industry. Saves you, me and himself. Finally gets the flowers he’s deserved since creating this entire boom. Sami Zayn. WWE Champion. Kevin Owens returns and gives him a big hug. We all live happily ever after.

Edited May 11, 2025 by Supremo

[d-d-d-dAz]

I think R-Truth will be a sub plot that lingers for a bit, but ol' Phil has seemingly turned his attentions to his good mate John.

I wonder if they'll have Punk win some form of #1 contenders match, only for Heyman's little band of ginger skinned goblins to come and cost Punk the match at Money In The Bank.

I can see them wanting to recreate Punk blowing Vince a kiss at some point on this run; maybe after being screwed he tries to chase Rollins and Rollins does his own shit version of that.

Backlash was fun enough, I just... didn't really care.

Edited May 11, 2025 by d-d-d-dAz

[RedTwoster]

58 minutes ago, Supremo said:

I’d hoped that now they’ve got Orton vs. Cena out of their system they’d move on to guys Cena always had good chemistry with, like CM Punk or AJ Styles, or guys who can likely carry him to something decent, like Sami Zayn. So imagine my surprise when it seems the next feud is with fucking R-Truth. There’s fun to be had with Truth and Cena, but not an actual feud leading to match! When he’s counting down his final few dates, who the fuck wants to see him waste a match with Truth?!

The next PPV is Money in the Bank, so surely to goodness the next opponent is CM Punk? That said, if they do a match with R-Truth on Smackdown or Saturday Night Main Event, that works for me - I could see it being a fun underdog story, in the way Gunther/McAfee was.

That was a fun show. Gunther/McAfee was match of the night, but really, I enjoyed everything. The US Title match was a load of fun, and Solo Sikoa - despite not being in it - has improved so much in terms of how he carries himself. I’m certain the original plaN was to turn Solo babyface, before Fatu started getting cheered at a level that couldn’t be ignored.

Jeff Cobb looked good in what he did. For a few seconds, I genuinely thought it was Rhino interfering, they look remarkably similar. 

Lyra/Lynch was very good, but there’s something that isn’t clicking for me with Lyra. She’s tremendous in ring, but she’s quite bland as a character. I hope she finds a personality that works for her. 

Dominik Mysterio is going to be a huge babyface sooner rather than later. The match was fine, but I hope they recognise that they have more than a fun midcard act with him, he’s tremendous. 

Cena/Orton was actually pretty good, although I hadn’t realised they’d cut back expenses so much that waking up the referee rather than sending another out was their first course of action. That was a bizarre spot.

I really want Cena’s heel turn to be better than it is, but they need to do something different with it. He said he doesn’t need music. Cool, saunter out to silence from now on. Maybe stop wearing the merchandise too, come out wearing normal clothes or something. If he doesn’t care, make it clearer that he doesn’t care. The R-Truth angle was fine, but I hate the ‘Cena can’t wrestle’ line. What does that even mean? He’s the champion, so in a storyline sense clearly he can wrestle. 

I hope Cena finds his feet as a heel before this current run ends. It would be a disappointing end to an otherwise stellar career - particularly when you consider the storyline of Cena as a face chasing one final title win was there on a plate for them, and likely would have worked.

[DavidB6937]

Last night was definitely the first time I enjoyed heel Cena. The first time I really wanted the bastard to lose, despite it being against Randy. Overbooked madness but in an entertaining way rather than Travis Scott turning up. Keep going this way and whoever dethrones him will be an absolute hero.

God bless R Truth. Can't even be mad at the guy. He's a national treasure.

Rest of the show was all enjoyable, boosted by a great crowd.

Strong opener. Love 4 ways like that. Looking forward to finding out how Jeff Cobb fits into all this. To be fair The Rock did hint at something NJPW related. He's a clever guy. Obviously traded the Good Brothers. He knows what he's doing.

Almost didn't watch Becky and Lyra because my interest in The Man has never been lower. But fair play, she worked her arse off to make the champ look good. It's just a shame she's such a shit character.

I was going to feel sorry for Penta when the crowd were clearly behind Dirty Dirty Dom but he definitely got his fair share of support too so that was good. He needs to call his brother and some of his AAA mates ASAP though.

Can't speak highly enough of Pat and Gunther. Pure sports entertainment spectacle and perfectly booked. Even when Cole was trying to screw him by holding him down. Crowd loved it. Pat loved it. Gunther is an incredibly well rounded guy who can do so much. Just real fun from bell to bell.

And yeah the main event probably ran a bit long but once it started going off the rails with the ref bumps and the table fail and all that it was enjoyable chaos. 

Definitely a better show than I was expecting anyway. 

[poetofthedeed]

2 hours ago, Supremo said:

Triple H really not helping himself regarding the accusations that he’s a daft old racist. Samoan. Hawaiian. All look the same, don’t they, Paul? Bunch ‘em together!

While there's credence in this when it comes to Mexican wrestlers, I actually think the story of solo pissing off the anoai tribe so badly that he has to resort to grouping together any island mercenary he can get his hands on would be a solid one if commentary ever tried to get it across, or if anyone cared about it inevitably blowing up in his face.

Cobb vs fatu will inevitably be ridiculous.

I should have hated Gunther vs McAfee, and was of the opinion it should have been a 90 second squash, but you'd be forgiven for forgetting McAfee is 6 foot, 16 stone and gifted with one of the greatest right foots on planet earth, and the match was structured perfectly to buy into the idea that just maybe he could do it.

Cena/Orton was like a slower version of every other Cena/Orton match, but they are 2 of the best ever and the crowd were into it every step of the way, so that did exactly what it was supposed to do.

I don't know how on board I am with heel Cena but him winning with belt shots until Roman steps up and kicks out because he's got that big Samoan head power would make me very happy.

[The King of Old School]

Cena/R-Truth in a squash at SNME sounds good to me.

Hoping it's Cena/Punk at MITB but no idea how you get there.

[HarmonicGenerator]

2 hours ago, Supremo said:

[Excellent Supremo review that actually made me want to watch Backlash. Backlash!]

My dream scenario is our hero Sami Zayn wins Money in the Bank and cashes it in on that last show. Finally wins the big one. Saves the company. Saves the industry. Saves you, me and himself. Finally gets the flowers he’s deserved since creating this entire boom. Sami Zayn. WWE Champion. Kevin Owens returns and gives him a big hug. We all live happily ever after.

And then turns on him, the natural order fully restored.

[Gus Mears]

I keep occasionally get dragged back in because it's on Netflix and then immediately remember I hate this product. Watched the main event, which was probably the second best Orton Vs Cena match ever, which is damning with the faintest praise imaginable. Enjoyed the 15 minute promo video which included Harold Steptoe saying "these two bring out the best in each other" which even by wrestling standards is a fabulous lie.

Cena is such a crap heel. He's a toddlers impression of a bad guy: gurning like Billy Idol and looking morosely at his yellow tea towel. Utter shite. Though it will all ultimately be worth it when he turns back and goes full Hogan at Mania 18/Bound For Glory.

[The Dart]

Gunther vs Pat McAfee was actually a masterclass.   Every single thing that happened in that match meant something.  Every tiny movement related to the storyline, which has only been running 3 weeks.  Quite incredible really.  WWE are so good at that kind of thing, although sometimes (most of the time) they overdo it - like they really had to make it clear Jacob Fatu was confused about Jeff Cobb, no subtlety at all - but with the McAfee match they got it perfect.

[air_raid]

Lineup looked so uninspired and inconsequential that rather that watch any of it, I used the same time to watch some of Mania V instead.

[thatvinylgeek]

4 hours ago, The King of Old School said:

Cena/R-Truth in a squash at SNME sounds good to me.

Hoping it's Cena/Punk at MITB but no idea how you get there.

Not sure you should dethrone Cena via a squash ?