Backlash In A Nutshell: Greatest Wrestling Match Ever?

After a lot of hype in nearly empty arenas, we get to find out if Backlash can deliver us the Greatest Wrestling Match Ever.

Most don’t expect it to. After all, to be the Greatest Wrestling Match Ever requires a lot…and it’s asking a lot of all involved.

Also, most truly great matches are called that AFTER they happen, certainly not before.

But, enough about the Greatest Wrestling Match Ever. Backlash also gives us a few championship matches, with Bobby Lashley challenging Drew McIntyre and Braun Strowman defending in a handicap match.

We also have the Women’s Tag Titles to be defended in a triple threat match, and we get to see if Nia Jax hurts someone else as she fights Asuka for the RAW Women’s Championship.

All that and much more-including maybe the Greatest Wrestling Match Ever?

No more delays, so let’s crack open this Nutshell!

Best Match of the night:

Was it the Greatest Wrestling Match Ever? No…but I’d argue it was the best match of the night.

That, of course, goes to Edge and Randy Orton. I am not alone in my thinking here, either.

best Orton has been in years, Edge looks like he hasn’t skipped a beat in being gone 9 years and Samoa Joe was amazing on commentary. It may be as long as the WM match but not at one point was I bored like I was with that. Greatest, never gonna be. However SOLID throughout.

— Pablo El Diablo (@ThatLadPablo) June 15, 2020

Was it a great match? I will say most definitely. Greatest match ever? Well, I won’t go that far, but it was pretty close. #WWEBacklash

— Adrian Davis (@NewLevelAdrian) June 15, 2020

Worst match of the night:

The Viking Raiders/Street Profits was just bizarre.Some of their competitions have been good, some have not been.

Eventually, they will wrestle, like, an actual match right? Maybe?

I mean…why did we need ninjas? It’s like WWE wanted the cinematic match to jump the shark.

I didn’t like the finish for Asuka and Nia Jax, but I expect that it will lead to something. I hope so…

Crowd Chants of the Night:

This is awesome

Fight forever

I don’t know, or care, if they were piped in or amplified or anything. They fit in nicely during the main event.

Star of the Night

Could give several of these out, so I am going to do a top five. Of these four, you could flip a coin and I wouldn’t be mad at any landing the top spot.

Samoa Joe. No, he did not wrestle, but once again, stellar on commentary.

Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley, for giving us a match that was honestly far better than I expected.

Edge and Randy Orton, for maybe not delivering THE greatest wrestling match ever, but delivering perhaps the greatest match between those two, ever (thus far).

Spot of the Night:

Just a few from the chaos that was the RAW Tag Title “match”

Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:

Ninjas? Seriously?

Who thought this was needed?

Commentary of the night:

Not a line, just one of many compliments.

I want a PPV commentated by Mauro Ranallo and Samoa Joe. That would be top tier WWE Broadcasting

— Mario “Kuma” Mentasti (@MarioKMentasti) June 15, 2020

We may miss Samoa Joe the wrestler, but Samoa Joe on commentary is pretty fine too.

Noteworthy Moment:

According to reports, Edge suffered a torn triceps during that main event. I knew of this (as did most, if you read the dirt sheets) before the match, and as I am watching it, I struggled to either see when it happened, or how it really impacted Edge.

Not saying he wasn’t injured. Saying that if it was really that bad, I am curious how long  Edge wrestled the match with it, because that was a really great effort from the Hall of Famer.

Overall lowlights:

That Raiders/Profits match was the down moment for me tonight. Honestly, every other match was at a minimum solid, so this was all I had.

Overall highlights:

The US Title match was good, and things kept getting better from there.

Not sure what happens next for Hardy, or if he’s even done with Sheamus…but the match was strong.

Women’s tag title match was good. Asuka and Nia Jax left a little to be desired, but Asuka appeared to not get injured, so yay!

The men’s title matches were both good enough, with the RAW pairing better than the blue brand.

The main event topped their WrestleMania match.

After the final bell:

I came in with low expectations. Perhaps that helped, because they didn’t theoretically have to do much to meet or exceed those.

That said, this entire show was honestly far better than I had expected it to be. Perhaps some were not the match ups we wanted, but they were the match ups we got, and they pretty much all nailed it.