WWE Backlash 2018: Results, Highlights, Analysis, and Grades

Source: WWE.com

WWE Championship Match (No Disqualification)

AJ Styles (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

Result: Double count out, AJ Styles retains WWE Championship

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

You know why Roman Reigns isn’t getting the reactions WWE wants him to get? Because of nonsense like this. There is no legitimate reason — barring something crazy post-match, which I don’t anticipate — for Reigns/Joe, good as it may be, to main event Backlash. None whatsoever. This here is a damn WWE Championship Match. It’s still allegedly one of the most important championships in the company, Jinder Mahal reign aside.

But, no, let’s put a match between two long-time rivals who can’t even interact before or after the match in the last slot, and move this one up the card. This is where “Roman is entitled” comes into play, and now Styles and Nakamura get the short end of the stick.

Anyway, reading that the Vegas Golden Knights won tonight and are heading to the Western Conference Finals helped bring me back down from a crazier rant. And, maybe it’s just me, but Styles and Nakamura may have gone into, uh, “to heck with you” mode about the card placement. Because this was, while still not great like you would expect, the best of Styles/Nak in WWE thus far. It started waaaaay too slow, and didn’t exploit the no DQ stip at all for the vast majority. But compared to previous matches, perhaps with tempered expectations, this one was king.

But when they did make use of the no DQ aspect, it was pretty good. In an Eddie Edwards-approved spot, Styles threw a chair at Nakamura mid-Kinshasa. It was not a great idea, because of this thing called physics. After Styles busted himself open, things picked up more, but what a dumb spot.

Once the acton traveled below the belt, everyone got what they came for. And a match that started really slow but got really great finished with a whimper. So in hindsight, maybe it’s a good idea that this wasn’t the main event. I’d say the finish neuters the feud, but it may be a little too on the nose.