Official 2025 Backlash Review & Reaction

Let's talk last night's Backlash PLE. One that saw Randy Orton vs John Cena for the final time, Becky vs Lyra, Gunther vs Pat McAfee, a fatal 4-way for the United States Championship and a new Bloodline member debut.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre and you're listening to
the WWE podcast, the.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Show, the one that everybody wants me godt fore sixteen.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
So I just used your ass is my arm?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
You can acknowledge me.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Well, Backlash has come and gone, and we are now
focused on Saturday Night main event as the next kind
of ple e and then from there it's onto money
in the bank. But this is going to be a
show up and down, from wall to wall backlash as
intended by the title, and overall, I will say I
I did enjoy Backlash, despite the fact that they were

(00:59):
not as many returns or swerves as I would have liked.
And yes, we got a debut, one that no one
saw coming and one that made me and a lot
of people be honest, go who's this again? Who right?
And we'll get to that debut that new member of
the Blood and the newest member of the Bloodline in

(01:22):
just a few minutes, because that Bloodline story just will
not die. There have been so many iterations, in twists
and turns in that story. Are we all ready to
say it's over yet? Are we all? Every time you
think the Bloodline story is kind of fizzling out. They
just find a way to revive it. And sometimes it's

(01:44):
really good. Sometimes it's okay, and this time, yeah, it's
a new face. But I'm kind of ready for the
Bloodline to stop being a thing. I don't know how
you guys feel about it, but just generally, I'm just
I don't know, I'm just no matter it's seemingly what
they do to it, They've kind of done everything. They've
introduced new people, They've had people turn babyface and heel

(02:06):
from it. They've had champions go four years plus running
the company. We've had an absentee champion, Roman Reigns. We've
had a Babyface infiltrate, a heel group with Sammy Zain.
We've had a new version of the Bloodline version two
point zero with Solo Socoa and his his tonguins and

(02:29):
now the new guy will get to him. And so
we've kind of seen it all done at all, and
I'm not I will say I'm not against watching it.
I just feel like I'm it's being oversaturated and they
are squeezing every ounce of this Bloodline faction that they
can out of out of the story, and that's their job.

(02:51):
I guess, But thank you everybody for joining me here.
I hope you all enjoyed Backlash. I was not an
active participant very much. I was exhausted yesterday, so I
didn't get to watch backlast really till this morning, and
even then I didn't watch every single thing. I did
skim through some things and go through entrances and just
watch the matches, which saves you a lot of time.

(03:12):
By the way, if you're not a big entrance person
and just want to watch the meat of the whole show,
you can, and it cuts the time at about half.
But I think the time overall was a nice pace
for the show. I mean three hours, you can't beat
that for a ple And it was very wrestling heavy,
as ples tend to be outside WrestleMania, and there's a

(03:32):
lot to get to. There's a lot to get to,
but first I want to get to big Ease comments.
Y'all know I was going to talk about this Biggie
on the pre show, talking about quote unquote giving grace
to the older performers, the older women female performers, and

(03:53):
again it came in response to Becky Lynch's comments. So
Becky Lynch had said that quote I'll do continue to
do what I'm doing. I'll be great. I'll just beat
all these younger people, beat newer people. It's not that hard.
For some reason, it seems to be hard. It seems
to be harder on the women's vision. Look at all
the men. Who do you got that's hot and young

(04:16):
over there? None? You got a bunch of old lads
beating each other up. Nobody's saying nothing. The man really
drove her point home when she said that no one
is asking for Sampunker, even seth Rollins to step aside
and big Eie, here's what Biggie said about that, you
see two Irish women.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
I feel like so much of the narrative is is
this a passing.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Of the torch moment?

Speaker 4 (04:40):
But it's also very interesting when I hear from Becky
and she talks a lot about age and the way
we talk about age with the women and the way
we talk about age with the men, and that for
a lot of women who are in their late thirties,
it's all are you winding down? When are you ready
to get out? It feels like seventy five percent of
the male side is thirty eight thirty ninety five ready
Randy wanted to do another ten years exactly exactly. So

(05:03):
let's give the women the same honor in the same
grace as well.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Okay, first of all, mister male feminist, all right, the
first couple things, all right, And to hear that from Biggie,
I mean it's such a it feels like a corporate line,
does it not. Okay, two big things here. One, men
and women are different. I know that comes as a shock,

(05:27):
It probably comes as a revelation, but if you look around,
you just kind of can tell inherently that men and
women are not the same. They don't age the same,
they don't have the same strengths and weaknesses. And if
we're just talking about physically now, just physically, men are superior.
They just are biologically right. Otherwise, I mean, men competing

(05:52):
in women's sports it would be a travesty. And we're
seeing that now and a lot of actions taken. Again,
So what there should which should be? I mean, you
can't have men competing in women's sports. That's what the
delineation is for fairness, right, But that aside, Okay, the
fact that men and women are different. The idea though,
that we have to give women grace right, and that

(06:16):
Becky first of all, can't speak proper English, Okay. I
mean she says, quote, you got a bunch of old
lads beating each other up. Nobody's saying nothing. That's from
Becky Lynch. Expand, Becky, please please expand on that. It
seems to be harder on the women's division. How in

(06:39):
what way? Because of age?

Speaker 4 (06:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Age is a big factor because women do not age
the same. When you take a woman who already is
physically limited compared to the men, and physically limited in
the ring compared to men, their muscle mass, their bone density,
everything down to their cellular level degrades at a slower
pace than men. That's just that's just fact. Okay. So

(07:06):
you don't have a lot of these women. Do you
see Sable wanting to come out at sixty years old
and have a match? Who do you see on the
women's side that the ww fans or the w WE
are like, hey, you know what was that person doing?

Speaker 2 (07:21):
These days?

Speaker 3 (07:22):
You don't see it because women are not as physically
strong and capable as men period. I mean, we just
had Stone Cold come out of retirement a few years ago,
sixty years old, nearly sixty and had a bust ass
match with Kevin Owens. Right, we had John Cena and

(07:46):
Randy Orton at nearly fifty years old, nearly fifty having
a hell of a match last night at Backlash. So yeah,
these men are because well, yes, their drive and their
their lifestyle and all that helps promote their maintaining, maintaining

(08:10):
of muscle mass and all of that, and their lung
capacity which is far superior to women's. Again, physically, I'm
not talking about mentally. I'm not talking about emotionally. I'm
not talking about what they contribute to society as a whole,
or that women don't have strengths. I know a lot
of you are reading into this. I'm talking about physically
purely from a professional wrestling standpoint, all right, but very

(08:31):
clear about that. No matter what I say, I'm sure
I'm already angering some of you. And that's just is
what it is. If you're angry at this, then you
have your own agenda, which it means you're just angry
at facts. I have no issue if women want to
come out of retirement, Okay, that's fine with me, but
it's going to be embarrassing and it's also going to
be unsafe. It's I mean, yes, there's an inherent risk

(08:53):
even for men that come out and they're older, because
they're just we are all slaves to father time. They all,
we all will die. We all have our bodies right
now as we speak, breaking down. That's it, right, But
men do it at a slower pace and they're able
to absorb more punishment in the ring for a longer

(09:13):
period of time. Professional wrestling forever will be a man's sport.
It just will be. You're gonna have women who do
a hell of a job and they're always going to
be a part of professional wrestling, but pro wrestling at
its core will always be a man's sport. It just
is going to be. It doesn't need to transition to
a female sport, and it really wouldn't anyway. People don't

(09:35):
want that. I don't think people. People just want a
healthy mix, and you're not going to see a lot
of these women at fifty five sixty years old do this.
It's not gonna happen, so big ee cool it all right.
I know he's trying to play the I'm an ally

(09:55):
of the feminist card. I can see it. Unless I mean,
he probably truly believes it too, which makes it worse.
I'd love to have to ask him like, Okay, what
do you mean by that? Exactly? Give them the same
grace in what way? Because of their age? Are we
now being sexist and agist? Is it because when they
get older they don't look as good? So that's why
we're saying they can't compete and they shouldn't commit. But

(10:17):
come back, is that what you're implying is because they
as women get older, they don't look as good. Is
that what you're implying And that's what we care about
the most. Is that what you're saying, Biggie sounds like it.
But also, Becky Lynch, on top of all this, has
said recently that she would beat MJF in a promo. Yes, yes,

(10:42):
she said that. I don't know what world, what reality
Becky Lynch is Rebecca Quinn is living in. She cannot
truly believe that she would in a shoot promo or
even a work promo because MJF would add his own flavor,
actually come out on top against MJF. She's kidding, right, MJF.

(11:08):
I think could school John Cena. And that is saying
something right now, MJF. Is he is the best promo
I've ever seen in my lifetime by a mile. Becky
Lynch can't even form a sentence, and she thinks that
she could defeat MJF in a promo. Is this just

(11:30):
trying to get attention? Is this her just trying to
scream for attention? Is that what this is? It's a
cry for attention, Becky Lynch saying that she could defeat MJF.
MJF in his sleep you know, you know how some
people sleep talk in his sleep talk? Could torch Becky
Lynch much less a fully conscious, rested MJF. I don't

(11:57):
I mean, she can't truly believe this. She can't believe
it herself, So I don't know if she's trying to
fool Becky Lynch. Just is zero for two here and
then you got Biggie oh for one. All right, Well,
if I've still got you with me, and you're currently
in the middle of writing a review that I'm I
don't know, some kind of some kind of hateful, sexist whatever,

(12:21):
continue I don't want to interrupt, So continue with that review, which,
by the way, those reviews help me, So go ahead
and post it all you want. But let's get to
the backlash, alright, because that's where you're here. Let's talk
about John Cena, Let's talk about Randy or I'm going
to go right to it, because this match was awesome.
I know a lot of people, including myself, looked at
this as a match that ended our childhood at least

(12:46):
our our ruthless aggression or ruthless aggression childhood era. It
was a way to close that chapter forever. It is
the last time unless something changes. But I doubt it
that Randy Orton and John Cena are ever going to
have a match together. So that's kind of sad that

(13:07):
we see that also kind you know, kind of appreciative
as well. It was an appreciative, sad moment. I don't
care that John Sena is heel, doesn't matter to me.
That meant nothing. He clearly meant nothing to the fans
afterwards too, who were still channing for Cena and thank
you and all that who were cheering for him after
the show and off the air, And I want to

(13:28):
talk about that moment too, because I still think it's
a work. Meaning John Cena is appreciative of that moment.
I'm sure he felt that moment in real life of
the fans saying thank you, and he had this look
on his face of just sadness as the reality of
his career coming to a close is starting to really
catch up to him. That that's what I read in

(13:50):
that moment. If you watch the after show footage where
he's holding his belt and the fans are channing and
he just kind of walks up the ramp, and then
after the show he ends up saying that, you know,
to the reporters kind of in a very monotone voice,
that you guys, you know you deserve a little better
you you know you earn your chance to be here.

(14:11):
Somebody takes a question or gives a question to Seena,
and then Our Truth interrupts and we know what happens there.
Scena gives Our Truth an AA through the table during
the post conference, the post press conference. So I still
think John Cena's heel. I know a lot of people
are looking to this as a baby face turn. I
think it's a red herring. It's him trying to loop

(14:32):
us in just to drop us again. I think he's
trying to double down on it. We saw this a
couple of times throughout you know throughout history in w
big turns, including stone colds. If you remember again a
failed turn, Austin ended up turning heel. It's wrestlinga seventeen.
No one wanted to see it. And then he comes

(14:54):
out the next and that under raw and looks like
he's gonna whip Vince McMahon's ass. He doesn't. He turns
again on the crowd, and then actually a third time
he ends up as the whole Alliance versus WWF. At
the time was going on. Vince said he needs the
old stone Cold. Austin eventually gives him that old stone Cold,

(15:17):
but turns again on the WWF joins the Alliance as
the leader of the Alliance to try to triple down
on his heel turn, which still didn't work. So I
think we might be getting that from Sena. It might
be a trap that we're all supposed to fall into
where the footage is shown and ww wants us to
see it and seen it seems kind of humbled and

(15:39):
he realizes the error of his ways, only to drop
us again. Now, John Cena's final match I believe has
been announced, or at least his final date. It's going
to be in December at the TD Garden in Boston
for his final appearance slash probably final match, So we
do know when, at least the location, so there is that,

(16:02):
but just be careful of that moment. A lot of
people are looking to that as a baby face turn,
but I don't think that's coming yet. I think he's
going to really try to, you know, give it a
second chance here. And I have to say, John Cena's
heel turned has been very strange. It doesn't feel right still,
and maybe that's because you have twenty five years of

(16:22):
somebody being some a certain way and then when they
turned suddenly, it's it feels a little bit like really
a quarter century apparently you faked it, you know, But
I don't. I don't think that this was still the
wrong choice. I do believe that John scen to turning heel.
I would have if given the opportunity, I'd still do
it all over again, because I'd rather get to the
end of John Cena's career and go, eh, Well, that

(16:43):
didn't work the way we quite hoped it would. The
success wasn't as high as we hoped it was going
to be. The numbers and all that, and the reception
but you know what, we had the balls to do it.
To me, that is more important that you actually went
through it, even if it didn't work out the way
you hoped. So what I'd rather know that than go

(17:03):
back and go oh man, but like what would that
have looked like? So, but the match was really good.
I enjoyed their pacing as we expected. The pacing of
the match was was awesome. Yes, the kickouts of finishes,
the aa IS is about as effective as a closed
line at this point. We've known that for twenty five
years as well. No Travis Scott, we had the obligatory

(17:25):
ref bump. The ref took a hell of a belt
shot off his face by the way, woof, And then
all the you know, all the manage, all management comes
out and Nick all this comes out, and all of
you know, the agents come out to try to look
at the and help the referee, which, by the way,
why wouldn't he have just sent another referee out? If

(17:45):
this match is so important, how can you not have
somebody officiating it? What are you doing out there? Just
send the medical team out? What are you gonna do?
They're the trained medical professionals, you know what I mean?
So logically, it didn't make sense for any of them
to be out there other than bring out the EMTs
if you think there's something going on and immediately have

(18:06):
a referee at hand. I mean, this is something and
I know it's pro wrestling, and I'm not actually hammering
WWE because it's pro wrestling, and this is just one
of those holes we have to accept in our brains.
Is with how many refs take bumps, especially during main
events that's been going on for like fifty years. How
does not have a backup ref at the ready to

(18:27):
go so there's no gap in the officiating of a match,
you know what I mean? It takes forever for someone
to come to or for someone to come from the back,
and there's this several minute gap. How is that even possible?
After it happening nearly every single time, especially in the

(18:50):
modern age it's much more common. But Nick, all this
getting the RKO and you know, five other people, six
other people getting the RKO is funny. You would think
that this is the third time now that Nick Alldos
has got in the RKO. It's going to lead to something.
It has to, and I would think it's got to
be Nick alldis not just finding him. Maybe he comes

(19:12):
out on SmackDown, maybe he does say he's Randy Orton suspended,
but maybe Randy Orton shows up. Anyway, RKO is him
a fourth time, and that's what snaps Nick. But he
could also come out and say, you know what, I
was gonna find him. I was going to suspend him,
but I think I want to punish him in a
different way. And he shows his ring gear, right, I

(19:33):
think Nick Aldis taking on Randy Orton would be fun.
Why not be a fun, little little kind of side
show there. I'd have no issue with it. Nick alldos,
I've been waiting to see what he's got left too,
So that'll be a fun response to a third RKO
on Nick all this. But yeah, the match ends with

(19:56):
a belt shot and John cenor Saint as she should have.
I know we're in Saint Louis, it's Randy Orton's hometown.
I get it, But did anyone truly believe that Randy
Orton had a chance, especially the way that the build
led up to it and Randy Orton RKO John Cena
like three times on the way to their match at Backlash.

(20:20):
If that wasn't a telltale sign that he was going
to lose at the Plee. I don't know what was
all right? So what other matches took place beyond the
main event? I mean I spent twenty minutes here talking
about Biggie and Becky Lynch. And now the main event.
Let's go to the actual Fatal four Way for the

(20:40):
United States Championship. I know in my previous show I
said it was one on one, but that was because
the PREVIEWRS reading was wrong and I thought they changed something.
But no, it's Fatal four way Jacob Fattu Drew Mcatire,
Damian Priest and l Knight for the United States Championship.
Crowd was really in Fatu's corner here. I mean, they
still see a star, we all do. He's got a
very much Umaga. Look. Umaga had a great face for

(21:04):
the business, a great marketable face for the business. He
was believable, he looked genuinely mean, he's got that trait
going for him. Fatu is to me reminiscent of Umaga
in a lot of ways. And so this match, let
me just give you the time here. Do I have
the time?

Speaker 4 (21:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Eighteen minutes just under a shade under eighteen minutes where
we had a Jacob Fatu retaining the United States Championship.
I think a lot of people anticipated this, but boy
was I mean the match was just really good. Now,
up until the debut of Jeff Cobb, we did have

(21:44):
a bust ass match as expected, the Claymores, the kickouts, yes,
the kickouts of a zillion finishers, and that needs to
just stop. Someone in w W needs to get in
the ear of triple h. And can we just make
it a policy. Can we have just like maybe a
running lottery where like per month, per month, there's but

(22:11):
maybe three kickouts of finishes, not including house shows. I'll
let how shows do what they want, but include any
televised event. There are only three times in total for
every match televised that you can have a kickout of
a finish. So we start to re educate the audience
that kickouts of finishes are exciting, they're unexpected, they're a

(22:33):
big moment. Even the announcers don't even get excited anymore,
or at least they can't even pretend to get excited
about kickouts of finishes. You can hear in their voice
that they anticipated Michael Cole is like, I had a
Claymore from McIntyre and you know he's won two, you know,
and oh in five two kicks out, Like he's not

(22:55):
even excited when there's a finish because he knows that
he's you know, he's seen it a gajillion times, so
he's not even going to try to sell it because
he doesn't even believe it in the pretend world. That's
how beaten down we are that we can't even play
pretend that it's exciting anymore. So it would I think
it would be a really big deal for the business,

(23:17):
just WWE if they just implement a policy where guys
can we just reduce our kickouts and finishes, stop using
it as a crutch. I know it's cool when kickouts
and finishes happen, but it needs to happen less, not more,
for a whole host of reasons that I won't dive
into that I've gone into before. But the match was good.

(23:41):
Now Here here's the finish. We had Priest run Fatu
into the ring post slam his head on the broadcast table.
Knight put Fatu on top of the broadcast table, went
to the second rope and played to the crowd and
then Solo comes out pulled Fatu off the broadcast table.
Night goes after Solo, but he was punched by a
man on the other side of the barricade. Jeff Cobb,

(24:04):
who's wearing a black shirt and black pants, was mentioned
by Cole as the man who hit La Night, and
Fatu recovered, seemingly surprised by Cobb's involvement as he looked
at him, and Solo mentioned for Fatu to return to
the ring and have his way with Knight, and Fatu
did that and hit his Moon Salt finish for the victory.

(24:24):
So instead of a Solo Soca turn that I predicted,
and I think some of us did a lot of
you did too, we get not only Solo not turning,
but another member added. Now the member being added could
be the an ultimate setup for Solo to turn on
Fatu because he has somebody to watch his back in

(24:47):
Jeff Cobb. So when you know Fatu tries to get
his hands out Solo, Jeff Cobb could be the one
to interfere, and then you got a Jeff Cobb versus
you know, Fatu matchup, and so there could be just
setting the groundwork for that now instead of just solo turning.
And I'm fine with that too. I don't need it now.
I just was wrong. So again, when I heard Jeff Cobb,

(25:09):
I'm I'm thinking. I looked at the screen, I looked
at I'm like who, I said, who's this dude? And
I know a lot of you are probably how'd you
not know? It's because, hey, I don't have the time.
I just simply don't have the time to watch you know,
things that aren't on the main roster. I just don't.
I don't. So that's the simple answer. I got too

(25:31):
much going on for me to do that. So for
somebody who's not locked in to the outside forces that
are not WWE the main roster, I just I'm just
everyone's reacting in the arena, which made me feel stupid.
But also I'm thinking to myself, how's anyone at home
sitting there going, Oh, I know who that is? I
don't know who the f this dude is. So anyway,

(25:53):
that aside, Jeff Cob, good luck, big guy, and it'll
be fun to see how he fits into the store
line here. So then we have Lyra Valkyria versus Becky
Lynch for the women's Intercontinental Championship. I really enjoyed this one.
This was a lot of fun. This may have been

(26:13):
one of the longest singles women's matches that I've seen
in a long time. Nearly nineteen minutes, eighteen minutes and
forty five seconds for this matchup, and it deserved every
minute of it. This was a really good match. Not
so I mean Becky had You know what kind of
wrestler she is. She's very good. We know what she is,
we know her legacy. She's a walk in Hall of Famer,

(26:36):
we know that. But for Lyra, who's been on a roll,
I think it was very important for her as this
is clearly the most important match of her entire career
to continue that momentum and build on her promo that
she had last week that actually made her have a personality.
It appeared she had one, and she built on it

(26:57):
brilliantly this time last night with a quality match with
Becky Lynch. And here's the finish if he didn't catch it.
Lynch attacked valkyriap sorry, Lynch runs into Valkyria, who was
the turnbuckle was exposed. The referee got in the way
and then went to ringside and grabbed the turnbuckle pad. Meanwhile,

(27:21):
Lyra hit Lynch with her night wing finish, but the
referee was focused on the turnbuckle pad and was too
late to get the three got a two count, and
Lynch then stuffed the night wing attempt and thumbed the
eye of Valkyria, who was able to catch Lynch in
a pin for a three count while also selling her eye.

(27:41):
And then Lynch immediately attacks with Lyra and put her
in the disarmer adam pears, referees, producers ran out, and
eventually she released the hold and Cole told said Valkyria
retained her title. Then questioned at what cost, and Lynch
headed to the back and Cole said Valcaria may have

(28:01):
broken her nose, but said she had arrived, and that's
exactly right. I think that's a great way for Cole
to put it. Lyra has arrived. At first, she came
in as a kind of shy, meek, not so confident.
And again, if you didn't watch NXT, kind of a
generic NXT you know, call up, you didn't know too much,

(28:23):
you weren't that interested. And now she has by far
over the last week. Again, just the last week, I
think she has risen higher than anybody at the beginning
of the week. So she has had the highest upward
momentum out of anybody in the last seven days. I think,
so good for her. I think that there's more to

(28:45):
be had here. She'll have her down time, she'll have
her uptimes, and right now we're in one of those
ascents and we'll see how far it can take her.
And you know how she follows up here. But I,
like many thought Becky Lynch was going to win, because
if she lost, it's like, well, she just turned, where's
her to go? And really where her is for to
go is simply darker. That's where she goes. She starts

(29:09):
to spiral. That's what she does. It was so obvious
to me afterwards, where she just continues to complain and
blame her and blame the fans and whoever else anyone
gets blamed other than herself, and she's gonna spiral and
that's fine with me, all right. So then we have

(29:32):
Penta versus Dominic for the Intercontinental Championship. Nine minutes and
twenty seconds. So this one was short. This was half
the time that Lyra and Becky were how about that?
But Dominic gets some pretty good crowd support here. Now.
The finish was Carlito walking out, distracting the ref, and

(29:54):
Finn and JD hopped the barricade. McDonough held Penta, but
Baler took his sweet time until the referee turned around
and spotted them, and Penta dove over the ref, hit
a flip dive on carl Toohi, McDonough and Balor climbed
on the apron argue with the ref while Penta was
on the ropes. Al Grande Americano showed up headbudted Penta
while the ref was distracted, and Dom went up top

(30:15):
and hit the frog splash on Penta before pinning him,
and Dom defeats Penta in nine minutes and twenty seconds
to retain the Intercontinental Championship. This this was good. It
didn't blow me away. We still again, just like I
potentially thought a solo socoaturn could happen on Fatu, thought

(30:37):
that Finn could turn on Dom here and that didn't happen.
We did not get a Dom Finn explosion. Yet they
are on the slow burn pace. I think sometimes I
fall back on the Vince McMahon era of something, you know,
rushing through things and not building slowly and just pulled

(30:59):
the trigger while we can type of mentality, and Triple
H has shown quite the opposite over the last two years,
so this is fine with me. They're building to something.
And as I mentioned at on my Backlash review show
that backlash is very much, often, very often a just

(31:20):
kind of a leftover from WrestleMania. Not really a ton
of title changes happened here. In fact, it's the least
probably the least likely pl for any title to the
change hands is backlash, and that certainly held true last night. Alright,
So then we got a video package for Gunther and

(31:42):
McAfee in this match with guntherer McAfee that fourteen minutes.
If you told me this match was going to go
fourteen minutes, I would have had a really hard time
believing you. But it did because of the pace, and
I mean, McAfee showed his toughness, had some hope spots,
he showed he can go, he can brawl, he can

(32:05):
even wrestle a little bit. And I also like Coal
getting involved. That to me was this is a weird
thing for me to say, but it's almost as if
for Michael Cole that was the moment that showed the
fans have completely turned or fallen, I don't want to

(32:31):
say in love, but they've I guess, finally showed their
appreciation to Cole. And I know it's in a wrestling
story capacity, but the fans have really had a chance
to cheer Coal in a storyline scenario. He's throughout the
year has been really shown as a heel. Remember the
coal mine, and the fans despise or really they were

(32:54):
sour on Coal because he didn't sound like Jim Ross.
And whoever was going to follow Jim Ross immediately was
in the hole because you're following the greatest announcer of
all time. And I still believe he is. I mean,
Jim Ross is still the greatest announcer of all time.
He's lost a couple of steps at his age now
in aw and he's got a ton of health issues,

(33:15):
and you know, he certainly doesn't have a whole lot
of years left on this planet. He doesn't. It's just
a sad reality. But in his heyday, nobody could touch
Jim Ross. Nobody, and so he followed Jim Ross and
after them, and there was a lot of resentment for Cole,
who had nothing to do with it, just doing his job,

(33:38):
and it took a long time for fans to warm
up to Cole. But I think last night it's one
of those moments that shows now it didn't happen in
that moment. I think fans have felt this way for
a while, but they got the chance that there was
an opportunity presented for them to show Cole that they
actually support him, really appreciate all the day he's done
for the company and continues to do for the company

(34:00):
by cheering him in that scenario, trying to help McAfee
by holding Gunther's leg. I mean, it was just it
was it was really good. Now, Gunther beating McAfee was
absolutely expected. It should have happened. There's no goldberg here,
no Goldberg. I repeat. So I went over three on

(34:21):
my predictions on that as far as potential returns or turns.
But the person who won here was Gunther, and and
I don't think there was that was ever really in doubt.
So the finish was McAfee rather a Pat McAfee rolling
up Gunther for a two count, which again that should
never happen, but it did. And then Gunther tried to

(34:43):
suplex on McAfee from the apron, but Cole tripped Gunther,
causing McAfee to land on top of him for a
two count. Gunther put McAfee in a sleeper. McIntyre fired
up at one point, but he faded and the ref
call for the bell and then that's when Cole came
in to check on mcafe and Gunter looked down and
McAfee got to his feet and Gunther gave him a

(35:05):
bit of a hat tip style acknowledgment before leaving the ring,
and Cale hugged McAfee and then left him to have
a moment in the ring. So the live crowd love this.
I mean it's because you know that the bar is
set super low here because you're not expecting a Ricky
Steamboat match up here, a Ricky Steamboat Rick Flair match.

(35:26):
You know you're not gonna get you know, Brett hard
Austin at WrestleMania thirteen. You just kind of know the
style of the match here. It's, you know, somebody that's
a badass, legit badass in the ring, no nonsense. Isn't
super fancy against an announcer who has a limited move

(35:46):
set to begin with? You know the kind of match
you're going in, so the bar is set low already,
but that's what made it fun. You don't have a
lot of expectations, so anything above just basic wrestling maneuvers
that you see, fans are gonna pop for it because
it's like, well this, this is an announcer. That's awesome,
he can do this. It's amazing how the lens of
the match before you watch it, how you view it,

(36:09):
what your expectations are, can really really dictate how you
react to the match while you're watching it. So that
the crowd loved it. And again, do I like the
fact that Gunther came close to losing a few times?

Speaker 1 (36:25):
No?

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Did you know they were going to do that? Yeah,
because otherwise it wouldn't be very entertaining and it would
just be a total squash. But no Goldberg, and I'm
okay with that, at least not yet. All Right, then
we got the decibel meter graphic on the screen when
Randy Orton's music played, and it max at around one

(36:48):
point fifteen, which, again I have a real problem believing
that that thing's real. Nonetheless, so the crowd's singing his
song and he it was still it was still a
good matchup again. I already talked about it at length here.
To say I enjoyed it would be pretty accurate. It

(37:12):
was an nostalgic feel to the match, and it went,
by the way, twenty eight minutes. Twenty eight minutes. That's
not including entrances. So this match was over thirty minutes
including entrances, and it was It was fun. It was fun.
The ref bumps continue to happen. As I said, they're
an obligatory part of every main event for the Undisputed

(37:34):
Championship since its inception. I mean, it's just it's getting
insane now. But ultimately, the only thing we got, Guys,
we didn't get Travis Scott. We didn't get a Faux
Rock appearance. We didn't get Goldberg, we didn't get a
soul so CoA turn. We didn't get what was the
other turn, I can't remember, but we didn't get any

(37:56):
of that. We didn't get any of that. We got
a Jeff debut, That's what we got. We got a
Jeff Cobb debut. But now we got Saturday Night main event,
which I fully expect to be pretty much on par
with this match or the show here. Wrestling heavy not
a lot of returns, not a lot of star power,

(38:21):
very much a you know, a house show on steroids,
no pun intended. That's what Saturday Night main event is
going to be and has been historically, and that's okay.
You know what, here's the thing. Sometimes a wrestling show
can just be a wrestling show, meaning it's just two guys,

(38:42):
two girls, or multiple guys and multiple girls in the
ring competing with each other trying to win the match.
That's okay. That can be the case. There doesn't always
need to be interference or shenanigans. We've educated ourselves fans,
partly due to our own fault and partly due to

(39:05):
the promotion's fault of always having especially big matches having
to have some kind of wonky bloodline WrestleMania forty esque
finish with three or four different people interfering, and that
that just we shouldn't have that expectation. Triple H has

(39:25):
gone back to a much more straightforward slow burn process,
and we're trying, at least for me, I know, I'm
trying to acclimate to that. Sometimes I'm stuck in the
Vince McMahon era of booking in my mind of oh,
I can see this coming I bet you're gonna do
it here. Oh, I can see Solo turning. The're gonna
bet you're gonna do that here, and they don't, and
they don't and they wait right and you're, oh, the

(39:48):
finn Balor. That's the other thing, Finn Balor turning on Dom.
You're like, oh, I can see that coming, and while
it is gonna happen, you just don't know when. So
a lot of times w is struggling with not trying
to fool the fans with what's gonna happen, but when. Now,
if you can do the what's gonna happen, that's a
better surprise than the when, because at least with the what,

(40:10):
you never saw that coming, versus the when, you're like, well, yeah,
I didn't know whether we're going to do it, but
I knew that were going to at some point. So
the second one is more common because it's, you know,
one that it's harder to fool fans nowadays with all
the leaks and people just out you know, going through
every possible scenario and one of them is going to
be it. So I think sometimes though, looking at wrestling shows,

(40:33):
we can just have a wrestling show. We can just
look at it and go, you know what, No o's interference,
no shenanigans. What's gonna happen If these two are the
only ones who have a say in the match, no
ref bump, no foreign objects, just these two individuals or
however many even individuals in that match, What's going to happen.
So I'm not against distractions and debakery. I mean, like,

(40:57):
let's be honest, I love chaos just as much as
then person. But I think we often expect it too much,
and I'm trying to recalibrate my expectations as to what
driple H's and TKO's vision of professional wrestling is. It's
not the wrestling of yesteryear.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
Is.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
It's evolving, and in some ways I love it. In
other ways I hate it. In the ways I love it,
I love slow burns. I'm all about story arcs. I
love when they reward fans for remembering things. I love
when they can talk about wrestling using the word wrestling.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Right.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
I love the fact that they've gone a little more edgy.
I hate the ads in the ring, un raw or anywhere.
I hate the fact that they have pulled back the
curtain every chance they get reminding you that the magic
you're watching isn't real. Every chance you get all the time,

(42:01):
I despise that I always will. That's not going to change.
So there are some things I really don't like and
things I love. But the fact is that TKO and
w A themselves and management and Triple H and Company
and his team creative have their own vision and it's

(42:24):
not a McMahon run company anymore. And we have to
remember that that it's not Vince McMahon at the top
of the pile. There's not a Shane McMahon. There's not
a Stephanie McMahon, although she may have us say indirectly
with her husband because they're married obviously. But we I think,
as fans, we should really try to remember that. So

(42:50):
and other news, Sabu dies. So he died at sixty
years old. We don't at least as of this writing
or this recording, I don't know the cause right now.
There's little known cause about what happened. I mean, you
can deduce things that are common, perhaps, you know, heart failure.

(43:13):
We're all, I mean, a lot of us just jump
to heart failure from steroid use, right, I mean, because
that's it was kind of prevalent, but we don't know.
I mean, I don't know. Maybe after you hear this,
everyone will know what the cause of Sabo's death is.
Right now, I don't know. There are updates though, two

(43:34):
injuries from two top stars being banged up after backlash,
and this is coming from Wrestling Inc. So the show
opened with a fatal four way as we talked about
where I Fatu retained his championship, and there were some
bumps and bruises as you'd imagine. I'm going I'm paraphrasing

(43:54):
the article here, and this is according to Triple H
quote Jacob, Damien, Drew, and Elleen Knight was incredible. What
a performance. I hate that word again. It's like it's
like I'm watching a magic show. I despise it. Luckily,
everybody's healthy. I think Priest got a tooth that he's
hoping will stay inside of his head for a couple
of days here and gets solid again. But other than that,

(44:17):
Drew is a little banged up but totally fine. So
really happy that turned out the way it did. So okay,
Damien gets a little a loose tooth that nearly got
knocked out, but they're hoping will strengthen back I mean
that that would freak me out. That freak me out.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
I know.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
I don't know about you, but sometimes I have dreams
about my teeth falling out. Anyway, fa two let's see,
and it's three challenges. Weren't the only men involved and
blah blah. Okay, so it's basically the Fatal four way.
That was really good and I had a feeling that

(44:54):
one could steal the show, and you can make a
case that it did. But back attires banged up. We
don't know what banged up means. Probably just bruised and
sore and the usual bumps that he's accustomed to, but
nothing that's going to allow him to or would force
him to take time off. So I don't know if

(45:15):
there's any other news coming out of there. I think
as far as injuries go, that might be the last
of the injuries. And yeah, so that will do it
for my Backlash review. I think that this was a
show again that was a good wrestling show, not a

(45:36):
lot of surprises or returns, and that has been the
theme for Triple H's run thus far. I mean, look
no further than the main event of WrestleMania I'm gonna
keep bringing it up. You didn't have somebody that was
an integral part of the storyline there because he wanted
the attention on someone else. At least that's the public reason.

(45:57):
So we'll continue to hammer that because it's just totally excusable.
So all right, and that's actually a question for you guys,
when or where do you think the Rock will actually
come back. I mean, he's gonna come back at some point, SummerSlam,
maybe next years, WrestleMania, who knows. I really for me,

(46:21):
I think it might be money in the bank make
an appearance, or his music. As I had mentioned last time,
for John Cena, I predicted that the music would hit
Travis Scott's there. They're trying to recreate WrestleMania. The crowd's
just so pissed off, so angry, but Travis Scott eats

(46:42):
an RKO, John Cena hits the belt shot one, two three.
I would have literally recreated except add the literally just
add the Rocks entrance music to the WrestleMania and I
two finish for the backlash finish. That's exactly what I
would have done to send the crowd into into nuclear mode.
You could still do that at the Money in the

(47:05):
Bank or yeah, money the Bank, you could do it.
Saturday Night Main event, you could also do it, but
I would save that for a Money in the Bank
and or Summer Slam finish for John Cena. But we
got a lot of time until that happens. Of course,
the Saturday Night Main Event, though, was only two weeks. Yeah,
we got two weeks, so that that's going to come

(47:26):
pretty quickly. The big gap is going to be between
the the Money in the Bank event and the Saturday
Night made event. So I think we have a pretty
decent gap as far as wpls. Let me look at
the gap here we have. Okay, we had Eluminius Chamber,
we've got backlash. So Saturday Night Main event is May

(47:50):
twenty fourth. Then we have the Money in the Bank event.
Oh it's June seventh. I thought it was July seventh.
Oh my god, I take that back. I thought some
reason it was July seventh. It is June seventh for
Money in the Bank. Okay, so we've got two weeks

(48:11):
and then two weeks. Every two weeks we've we're gonna
get a pl type of show. Wow. All right, so
they don't have time to really build it much of anything. However,
there is then a Evolution event on w Evolution that's
gonna be a lot of fun. I'm glad they brought

(48:33):
that back on July fifth in Mohegan Sun. They've got
the Saturday Night Made Event on July twelfth, and then
Summer Slam August third. Okay, oh, Night of Champions, I'm sorry,
Night of Champions. So between Money in the Bank and

(48:53):
Night of Champions, there's three weeks, and then between Night
of Champions and I'm not even gonna count Saturday Night
Made Event, and then between let's see the Night of
Champions and Summer Slam, it's three weeks. I think it

(49:15):
is four weeks, five weeks. Let me look, they don't
have the damn date. I don't see it. So anyway,
it's every couple of weeks from now until the end
of June that we have a pl So they're gonna
come rapid fire. Now, they're gonna come hot and heavy.

Speaker 4 (49:33):
All right.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
That'll do it for me. Thank you so much everybody
for joining me. I appreciate all of your support throughout
the years, or if you've just started listening, I appreciate
you giving me a listen, give me a try. If
you want to go add free Patreon dot com slash
WWE podcast. That's Patreon dot com slash WWE podcast. You
can also go to Apple and subscribe there. And we

(49:54):
also have a discord chat over at Patreon, so check
that out. And what else We have a We do
have a website, but no one really goes to it
anymore because websites aren't the place to go to to
listen to podcasts. So I mean, you could check out
ww podcast dot com, but that actually may be going
away because, to be honest with you, everything is just

(50:15):
video on YouTube or on Spotify or on you know,
on x even, so I think that may be going
away soon on ww podcast dot com. It's expensive to
maintain and I probably will shut it down as a
vast majority listened to us on Apple or Spotify or
spreaker YouTube. So that'll do it, everybody. I appreciate you listening. Again.

(50:38):
Happy Mother's Day to all of those out there that
celebrates or in our moms and hope you had a
good day. That'll do it. I'll be back on Tuesday
for our raw review.

Speaker 5 (50:50):
Take care everyone, Thanks for listening to the WWE Podcast.
Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app so
you don't us a show, or head to wwepodcast dot
com and for all of these shows add free head
over to Patreon dot com slash WWE podcast. Until then,

(51:12):
we'll see you next time.