6. Zombies
No, you aren’t watching the hundredth season of The Walking Dead. WrestleMania Backlash featured a load of Lumber-zombies as part of the Damian Priest vs The Miz match.
This was one of the biggest talking points of the entire show but not for the right reasons. It was nonsensical, stupid and very embarrassing to call yourself a fan at that particular moment. The zombies even knew the rules of a Lumberjack and controlled their brain-eating habits until after the match.
It makes it even more ridiculous that it was only done to promote Zack Snyder’s ‘Army of the Dead’ which features Batista. Which, may I point out, already had a ton of promotion throughout the show.
Damian Priest beat the Miz, who was then swarmed by the apocalypse post-match. It is reported that Priest is in store for big things, leading many to believe he will win this year’s Money In The Bank or have a title opportunity in the near future. As long as he is far away from the undead and Miz & Morrison as humanly possible!
At least this was the only tiresome part of this show. WrestleMania Backlash further proved to be the second Grandest Stage of Them All with the other Takeaways.
5. Rhea Ripley Retains Raw Women’s Championship
The main show kicked off with an incredible three-way for the Raw Women’s Championship.
With Rhea Ripley, Charlotte Flair and Asuka all in one ring, what else would you expect? The match was intense, including many multi-women manoeuvres like a huge double superplex from the top rope. Plus, Charlotte managed to implement a double Natural Selection but even that wasn’t enough to reach another Flair title win.
Ripley retained after a cracking opener. It’ll be intriguing to see where the Nightmare heads next at Hell In A Cell.
Additionally, with Charlotte looking quite warped at the end of the match, it’ll be interesting to see if she enters a feud with Alexa Bliss and Lilly soon.
4. Rey & Dominik Mysterio Win SmackDown Tag Team Championship
During the pre-show, Dominik Mysterio was viciously attacked by the Dirty Dawgs. This put a lot of pressure on their pivotal SmackDown Tag Team Title encounter.
Rey Mysterio had to start the match off without his son by his side. He had to survive for about 10 minutes before his son came to the rescue. Well, I say rescue… The hot tag was rather cold as he was instantly caught by Robert Roode.
At least the end was very wholesome with the Mysterios capturing the Tag Team Title, becoming the first father & son tag champs.
This should lead to some thrilling matches against the Street Profits and hopefully, the Usos!
3. Bobby Lashley Retains WWE Championship
Wrestling fans are quite an opinionated community but there is something we can all agree on: Raw has been pretty rubbish as of late.
That is what makes it even more insane when the WWE Championship three-way match is one of the best on the show.
No T-BAR and MACE or other shenanigans. Just a destructive three-way encounter between Raw’s main event stars.
Some of the match’s highlights include a shocking flip from Strowman on the outside, crashing into Lashley and McIntyre. This match evidently hid Strowman’s weaknesses and made him feel like a dominant monster again.
McIntyre also sent the ‘All Mighty’ champion bursting into the titantron, sparks flaring and all. Then McIntyre was smashed into an unprepared commentary table by Strowman.
The ending of the match came when McIntyre hit a Claymore on Strowman, about to mark his third world title reign in the bag. However, Lashley threw him out and got a cheeky pinfall on the fallen Braun to retain.
This was a neat finale and means the Hell In A Cell bout can go either way. We could easily see Lashley defend the WWE Championship in a rematch against McIntyre inside the hellacious structure or barbarically battle it out with the Monster Among Men.
2. Bianca Belair Retains SmackDown Women’s Championship
Bianca Belair and Bayley had a great match to commemorate Belair’s first title defence. The two of them have evident chemistry and it wouldn’t be anything less than exciting if they face off again at Hell In A Cell.
This seems to be the direction they are heading in as after Bayley’s onslaught and ruthless slam into the steel steps, Belair retained with a leverage pin. She held Bayley’s leg with her hair for extra leverage.
6. Roman Reigns Beats Cesaro To Retain Universal Championship
Finally, let’s discuss the main event encounter between Roman Reigns and Cesaro over the Universal Championship.
The moment had eventually arrived. A moment in history that we didn’t think would ever exist. Cesaro got his opportunity to prove himself against the Head of the Table. An opportunity to win a World Title. Even in defeat, it is fair to say that the Cesaro section will have a few new members after his incredible fight with the Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns.
This match was awesome, but unlike the WWE Title match, which was absolute carnage, this bout was slow, strategic and methodical. Reigns had a game plan and he stuck to it. He targeted the uppercutting arm of Cesaro until it could uppercut no more.
This match, similarly to Reigns’ other title defenses in the past, made a star out of the challenger. Reigns always prevails but the challenger always puts up a fight and gets really close to securing a victory. That is what a championship match is supposed to do at the end of the day.
This match was effective as even after a 30-minute brawl, Cesaro almost being able to overpower the guillotine had fans on the edge of their seats. Reigns wins with no Uso assistance and it was truly awesome.
Unfortunately, the post-match angle was quite underwhelming with Seth Rollins beating Cesaro up with a chair to close the show. The only thing that was intriguing from this angle was when Rollins stared down the Tribal Chief. Is this foreshadowing to something about to come?
We will just have to wait and see.
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