Backlash 2025 recap

Backlash 2025 has come, gone and I think we can all agree that the card looked alot better than the execution. Opening up the show Jacob Fatu successfully defended his United States championship against LA Knight, Drew McIntyre and Damien Priest with a little help from his cousin Solo Sikoa and new comer to WWE Jeff Cobb. Next we turn our attention to the women's Intercontinental championship as Lyra Valkyra defends against Becky Lynch, after giving all The Man could unfortunately Lyra ended up being the better competitor. Following the Women's IC title we head into the mens, 'Dirty' Dom Mysterio defends his newly won Intercontinental championship against Penta of course to the surprise of no one there were many bouts of interference during this match but the most notable comes from the giant coffee as he headbutted Penta behind the refs back helping secure a victory for Dirty Dom. Next on the card Pat McAfee challenges former World Heavyweight champion Gunther in honor of his friend Michael Cole after Gunther attacked them both unprovoked, Pat lasted a valient 15 minutes but to the surprise of no one Gunther came out victorious. Main event comes in the form of a long standing rivalry 23 years in the making John Cena takes on Randy Orton with the rolls completely reversed this time. Cena stuck to slow and methodical throughout the match using some under handed tactics and knocking out a ref or two before retaining his 17th championship. 

We come back for NXT battleground and AEW Double or Nothing on the 24th.

Transcript

0:00

Wrestling has more than one royal family. Whoa. All right. What is up y'all? It is Brother Pyro. Um, unfortunately, I'm gonna have to, uh, at least start this show solo. If not, do the whole thing myself as, uh, sister Twisted is wrapped up with the little right now, and we are trying to get this to you as quickly as humanly possible tonight. I recap. Backlash 2025 can, to be honest with you, not the greatest show they've put on. Um, just really wasn't all that. And it sucks to say'cause WWE had isn't usually like this, but this was a very mid, mid show. The, the card looked great, the delivery not so much. Now let's get into it with the opening match fatal four way four men looking to claim US gold. Jacob Fatou defended against Damien Priest. Drew McIntyre and La Knight. Uh, one thing pointed out on commentary as they made these four men made their entrances Is McIntyre not being happy about the fact that this is a fatal four, that this was made a fatal four-way match. He did rightfully win the chance at a one-on-one opportunity with Jacob Patsu. However, I will say. Barrett's also making the claim that this might actually fare better for everybody.'cause Jacob Fatou has not been pinned or submitted, uh, since his debut in the company in one-on-one competition, uh, men doesn't really look like it's gonna happen anytime soon and the odds actually favored everybody else. Because Jacob didn't have to be involved in the decision. Now this match immediately you saw two stories. The feud be between McIntyre and Priest, which is stemmed from mania 40 of last year to today. And then you got to see the rivalry that is La Knight and Jacob Atu of, Hey, you beat me for my US title. I want that back. Uh, immediately they branch off that way. Um, for a good chunk of the match for, for a good chunk of the early going. La Knight was in control. Jacob was seemingly out of it. None of the three men really let Jacob breathe, and that was probably the smartest thing to do. You capitalize on somebody as unhinged as Jacob, and you don't let him have a moment to breathe. Because as you saw later in the match, once he got the ball rolling, he got that ball rolling. Let's talk. Uh, there was a moment where he, I. I believe intercepted priests with a clothes line hit McIntyre with that hip check just to bounce out and suicide dive to the outside to LA night. The fact that this big man moved that quickly in about a ten second span, this was a you blink, you miss what the hell just happened is wild to me. Because no big man should be able to move that gingerly that quickly as well as that man does. Going into our closing moments, again, rivalries break off. McIntyre and priests are on the outside. Uh, they're in the crowd almost, and they're doing their own thing. McIntyre gets hit with the south of heaven. Off of, uh, some equipment. Uh, we're looking at a possible concussion for McIntyre and maybe one for priest from what I've read recently. So Speedy recovery to them. Focus back to the Ring Knight is trying to capitalize on the outside. Uh, he has Jacob on the announced table. You can tell he's ready for a big move. This is gonna mean something solo comes out. He pulls Jacob off the table. LA Night. Not too happy about that goes confronts LA night. We're met with a close line from somebody in the crowd. Everybody's questioning it. We have the debut of Jeff Cobb. Uh, former Ring of Honor television champion, former IWGP tag, team Champion. He's been a heavyweight champion in many, many companies around, uh, independent companies around the world. He actually does have a history with quite a few people. Uh. In the company, he such as Penta, when back in their days with Loch Underground, uh, caught guys with other companies he was part of United Empire with, uh, he's actually got a few dating back. God knows how long. God knows how long. With Jacob Tu back to their independent days. Jeff Cobb has actually taken titles off. Of Mr. Fatou who, uh, as that as Jacob or as Jeff beats down LA night, Jacob is finally coming through on the side of that table as Knight gets rolled into the ring. Fatou is looking, oh, so confused. He does capitalize on that moment though, uh, able to hit a hip check that springboard, uh, moon salt. 1, 2, 3 walks out of St. Louis, still United States champion. Uh, you can definitely tell there's some frustration given the, uh, history that Jeff and Jacob have together. You can tell this might be the fi, the wedge that finally divides Solo and Jacob, um, as quoted by solo. Solo was out of soldiers. Michael Cole asked a very important question. Could this be a new soldier? Obviously that's gonna be what it looks like Friday night. SmackDown should hopefully have some more answers when it comes to this. This would probably be best delivered match on the card. I'm not gonna lie, I did graded an A'cause again, it was the only real good match we had going into. Now, I would really love to. Hear, twist his reaction. So y'all get ahold of her on the old, uh, Twitter machine, as Billy Ray likes to call it, or you know, x for anybody that is just now into that world, get ahold of her and, you know, see what she thought of all of this. I'm excited. Okay. Going into match number two, woman's ic. Title, Becky Lynch, RA Queria, mentor Mentee, or at least that's what the relationship was at one point. Becky really trying to. I have Lara sh It's really about respect and Lara n according to Becky, not knowing her place and Lara basically trying to prove I respected you. You meant something to me, but I don't, I don't mess with this new version of you. Uh, match wasn't super great. It was about average. It was about what you expected. Uh, it was a real good back and forth on a technical aspect. They definitely told the story that they needed to at one point. Mid match. You see Becky going for the disarm. Her Lyra was able to counter that into a arm bar. And you seemingly think Becky might just, just take the, uh, the tap out? No, she, she, they struggle back and forth. Uh, but again, like I said, nothing super, super memorable about this match. Becky talking trash to Lyra's fiance was entertaining. But that's definitely, I think what woke Lyra up for the match.'cause she definitely was, was dragging a little bit. Not gonna lie. Uh, going into our closing moments.'cause again, not much to talk about with this match. Uh, going into the closing moments, you got Becky trying to cover with a pin. Uh, she tried to use the ropes and ref. Jessica Carr did catch her. It was like, no, I'm calling this off. Uh, you saw the moments of frustration of Lara asking, yo, what do I gotta do to put her away? What do I gotta do? What, what's going on here? How do I end this? Eventually after a few near falls, a few back and forths a few rollups, a slight distraction, a slight Becky just taking her eyes off the ball. Elia was able to scoop up with the, uh, with a roll up. 1, 2, 3. Ladies and gentlemen, still Women's Intercontinental Champion Val, uh, gave again c. Average. Very, very average, especially for both of these women. They did allude to the fact that prior to this, uh, Becky is o was Owen one Now Owen two to Lyra.'cause if you remember Halloween havoc a few years ago, RA beats Becky for the annex to your women's title. Now, uh, obviously there's gonna be a lot more to be said about this. If anybody watched RAW this last week, Becky definitely came out and was like, look, I'm gonna be everything. Y'all are accusing me of being everything y'all said I was. I am now.'cause this is where we're at. And she still has her mind on I want championship gold and she's gonna do it. It. All right. Match number four, Penta Dirty Dominic Mysterio Intercontinental Championship on the line. Uh, do Penta really going at it ear early? You can tell. Penta looking for his first opportunity or really looking to claim his first singles gold dom. Really trying to back up the claim that he's the greatest intercontinental champion of all time. Shut up Dom. Uh, I will say that Michael Cole surprised everybody by saying something nice about dirty Dom. Uh, and that being how much he has grown as an in ring competitor, specifically complimenting the in ring ability that Dom is. Had been part of, uh, and his growth, not his attitude, but that, uh, Michael Cole did at when bringing up the, how. Dom likes to claim how he's already the greatest intercontinental champion of all time. Looked at Barrett Barrett. It's like, yeah, I've had five of'em and I'd say he's on par with me for, uh, being such a great champion. Michael Cole obviously laughs it off. Um, going into a few moments of the match,'cause again, not a lot really stood out here. Um, you can, you saw the fast paced lucha libre style that it really was pent out one point blocks the three amigos. After the first we got to see a suicide dive DDT combination from Dom. That really impressed me. Uh, just'cause it was definitely something you wouldn't have expected to see out of him. I think, uh, we got a little later in the match. Uh, not too much later after that though, but a little later in the match there was a Mexican destroyer on the ring apron. I looked, I'm watching, I'm like, I think Dom might be dead. Because man, did that look gnarly And as if on cue here comes Carlito and Carlito's distracting the ref out from the other side, or JD and Finn, uh, they're, you know, kind of trying to help Dom Finn definitely caught with, uh, caught lacking'cause he was, he was slipping up a little bit. He was, uh, delayed. He went to jump the barricade to get a steel chair. And he didn't make it in time. Hy before the ref caught him. Caught him, was like, yo, what are y'all doing? Looks at jd. Looks at Finn. Looks at Carlito, kicks him from ringside. You saw like J D's visible frustration of Duke. What the heck are you doing? You're, you dropped the ball here. Where I, I think there's still some animosity for mania. You know, doming ballor to win the icy title to begin with, but as they're all leaving, uh, outcomes. El Grande, Americano Headbutts Penta, leave the ring giving Dom the upper hand. 1, 2, 3. Ladies and gentlemen, dirty Dom wins this match. In typical heel fashion, you knew that there was gonna be involvement from the judgment day. However, the and Michael Cole calling you for what it is. Oh, Grande Americano being Chad Gable under a mask. By the way, that was a really funny moment on raw, if y'all haven't watched it, talking about how Gable needs to stick to being under the mask.'cause then he actually wins, matches that way. But he, uh. I called it for what? It was, gable under the mask. Uh, I gave this match. Again, a c it could have, it was so much better. But I, I think that last little bit of involvement really wasn't needed. I personally think Dom would've won the match, whether he had the initial help or not, my personal opinion, because that is how much he has grown as an in ring competitor. And up until even before the, uh, involvement from everybody. He was holding his own, he was doing really well. You can definitely tell Penta didn't have a lot of answers here, here for him. Uh, so now going into our next match, our second to the last match, pat McAfee and Gunther, A Tale of You, put your hands on my friend, and now I'm gonna stand up for him because. Let's be real. Michael calls almost 60 years old. He out there in age, he ain't fighting for himself. Pat was definitely willing to get in the ring with the Ring General. Uh. Michael Cole let it be known on the pre-show, and then again, as entrances were being made, he planned on being entirely biased. He apologized is to Pat McAfee for, you know, getting him in this situation and apologizes for the fact that he's about to be super unprofessional when it comes to this match. He definitely had a side and from the minute that bell rang, it was. Let's go Pat. Come on, pat. Like Wade Barrett agreed with where Mic Michael Cole came from morally, but again, also stated, I don't believe that this is going to be, I don't think Pat really has much of a chance here. So as the match goes gunther's pretty much dominant, like exactly what you expected to see. Gunther's dominating at one point. Michael Cole is begging and pleading for Gunther to just end the match.'cause let's be real. Gunther has the match one very early and he's just toying with him at this point. Eventually Cole does get off commentary, tries to hype Pat back up. Uh, pat feels that sense of. Urgency, that sense of energy. He's kind of refueling here, but of course we got nothing. It really inevitably didn't matter. Uh, the Pat's best chance at winning this was he pinned. He pinned Gunther and Cole is holding his foot, is holding up his foot under the rope. One, two. He still manages to kick out. That was probably Hads best chance. We, Gunther furious, pulls Cole into the match. Pat is able to, you know, kind of capitalize on that, but clearly not enough as, as the match continued, we got locked into a pat gets locked into a sleeper hold and inevitably just passes. Cole loses this mat, or McAfee loses the match via submission. Technically, uh, Gunther does give him a minute to get, you know, wake back up, get back up, has a quick show of respect, and leaves the ring. Pat, you held your own, but Jesus Christ was this incredibly stupid as Wade Barrett said. And I did give this match for the sake of the story that it told, unless the match itself, this match got graded higher than it probably should have.'cause from grading the match for what it was, it's about a D. Get nothing special about this match. It was exactly as one sided as you expected it to be, even, maybe even a little more. So the story kind of bumped it up to about a c plus. Now we go into our main event, Randy Orton, John Cena, WWE e title. This match is about as personal as it comes. They've known each other 25 plus years. They have been around and in the game forever. Even before OVW. They, they met at a, uh, how, or a independent show in honor of Brian Piman. Uh, Cole alluded to this on commentary, uh, match. Again, typical Cena or in match roles are kind of reverse casino's getting moved. Cena's the heel. What world are we living in? We get here, we're going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Collaring up a tie up, seen a smack. Uh, or into the face, you know, tries to walk out of the match. Randy chases him down there like Uhuh, you ain't going nowhere. We had, I think, a little bit of muscle memory as Michael go, called it. As you know, we hit the shoulder, tackle the shoulder, tackle the five knuckles shuffle, set up for the AA and Randy counters with an RKO at the same time leaving both men down. I think we counted about 11 Kos in this match, by the way. Um. A referee goes down at one point in the match. Referee goes down at least once. I believe this is the first time this referee has gone down. Specifically. He does come to not enough for Randy to win the match. Cool. Now we're on the outside. Referee goes head first into the steel steps. Randy. Uh. I love the comment that Barrett made. It was like, oh, all this pent up anger was reserved for Kevin Owens and now it's been redirected. And Cole looks at Barrett str Wait. Straight faces like, what are you talking about? This man, this had pent up anger for the last 25 years. Uh, talk about how they talked about how long Orton was planning on sticking around. He said he feels like he got another 10 years left in him. Talks about how, you know. Orton learned from Triple H and from Flair, who's sitting at 16 championships, uh, how everybody's saying nobody's and how nobody thought he was, or that 16 world title record was gonna get touched and alluded to the, if Randy really planned on sticking around another 10 years, that this 17, now that Cena's hit is definitely achievable, is definitely surpass. Uh, but going back to the moment on the outside, Orton hits an AA through the announced table. Orton hits Ena with his own move. T then sets up another table.'cause this becomes an all out bra. There is no referee sets up a table, they go at it again. Hits another AA through putting signals to that table. Gets him in the ring. He sets him up. He sets him up. RKO goes into the pin. There's still no ref. Ref. Finally comes down. One, two, kick out. They're going back and forth. Cena has the title, uh, reference, distracted or is turned around a little. He goes to cina, goes to hit Randy with that title. Randy ducks it out goes the ref, and immediately Nick, all us and a bunch of other, uh, WWE officials, wwe, higher ups come out to check on him, check on the ref, or it does hit that RKO. But again, no referee in frustration. We now have. Five more rks.'cause Al caught one. Gregory Helms caught one. Jamie Noble caught one. Two other officials caught him. But 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 right there. There's still no ref. Everybody is out the ring Now Randy or in a singlehandedly cleared this ring. He's lining Cena up for that. Punt that we've been craving to see for oh so long. We haven't seen it in about 14, 15, 16 year. Like we have not seen this in a while. We're wanting it. We're coming for it. This is what we want. Hit that. Punt our truth. Interjects himself, our truth comes out. Begs and pleads with Orton not to hit it. Orton hits him with an ArcHa. It gives Sena just enough time to recover. Sena hits Randy with a low blow. Hits him with the title, goes into that pin. A referee that hit the, uh, I don't remember his name, that hit the steel steps. Finally comes through just enough, gets himself in position. Very gingerly.'cause again, he did go face first into some steel steps. Ladies and gentlemen. Won two three winning the match and still champion. Still WWE E Champion is John Cena. Our truth doesn't get involved. That punk connects. Orton walks out of ho, walks out of his hometown. WE Champion. Our truth doesn't get involved. Randy is WWE champion. He hits 15, but no, now he's still stuck at 14.'cause people like our truth who, yes. I understand. Being a fan of seeing a calling that your childhood hero, air quotes around that phrase. Wanna get involved post match post show, uh, press conference. Cena come, uh, truth, you know, is trying to talk to Cena while he's doing like interrupt Cena during his press conference. A and Cena hits him with an AA made official for Saturday night's main event on the 24th, I believe is. Uh, our Truth versus John Cena for the WWE world Ha or the undisputed WWE title. I gave this match about a c plus.'cause it was again, about what you expected. We got ex Yeah, we got everything we expected out of this. Maybe a little more'cause I was not foreseeing, you know, far right. Kos, Randy's gonna be fine yet again, we know it. Truth being involved was definitely not on my Bingo card. Uh, backlash overall was about a c show. Again, super mid, not anything super memorable. Uh, with the exception of a few moments here. All right y'all. That does wrap me up though. Uh, we will see you the weekend of the 24th for NXT Battleground and on the 25th for a e W's double or nothing. We hope you enjoyed the show. Sorry for the delay. Uh, hopefully I have sister twisted back with me for the next recording. Love you all and have a good night.