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AJ Styles remains the main man on Smackdown Live after Backlash as WWE presented yet another glorified house show on pay-per-view.
Just over a week after the bizarre five-hour exhibition dubbed ‘The Greatest Royal Rumble’ in Saudi Arabia – and a tour to South Africa and television shows in Canada – WWE's exhausted stars were again put through the mill in New Jersey.
The talent, as always, did their bit – but WWE's overall presentation of the show, much like the Saudi event and even Wrestlemania which came before it, just seemed a little lacklustre.
WWE Backlash 2018 in pictures
Show all 25When you consider that the match between Roman Reigns and Samoa Joe did main event the show, you can understand why some fans were left to fume on social media at the climax of three hours of action that resulted in absolutely nothing meaningful by way of storyline progression, and zero title changes – much like the Greatest Royal Rumble.
Reigns was victorious over Joe – of course. If it were just the fact that they were continuing Reigns' relentless march towards the top of WWE then you could understand, but that would be to forget the routine, monthly pummelling he takes from Universal Champion Brock Lesnar. Lesnar, by the way, didn't appear at Backlash as his reduced schedule keeps him busy doing anything other than being Universal Champion. The crowd reaction said everything – WWE looked to cut to the crowd for the usual reaction shot at the climax of their main event and only ended up displaying scores of people leaving their seats.
And it's a shame for WWE's talent. They again did their best to pull out all of the stops but they're simply being drained at the moment. Quite how Seth Rollins and The Miz managed to produce such a high-quality match to start the show – with Rollins retaining his Intercontinental championship – is anyone's guess, but it was a cracker.
Elsewhere, Nia Jax defended her Raw Women's Championship with a sloppy display against Alexa Bliss, who WWE claim was injured during the bout that largely consisted of the challenger being tossed around the ring by various parts of the body for ten minutes.
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Greatest Royal Rumble overshadowed by controversy of no female stars
Another odd-looking call was to have Daniel Bryan's match against Big Cass run so short. The brief affair ended with a Bryan victory, as well it should at this stage of his comeback, but just as fans are enjoying watching his return, this effort seemed all-too-brief, the shortest of any match on the card.
A Bryan win inside a minute would have better accomplished the aim of presenting Bryan as by far the better wrestler and Cass just the brute force that got outsmarted. Instead they ended up having to bring things to a halt just as they were getting going. Cass ended up dishing out a post-match beat-down, thus no-doubt prolonging their feud, but if this was just a warm-up meeting between the two ahead of something more, why stage it at a pay-per-view instead of on television?
Carmella successfully defended her championship against Charlotte Flair at Backlash, while Bobby Lashley and Braun Strowman were successful against the squabbling pair of Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. Jeff Hardy remains United Sates Champion after he overcame Randy Orton.
Both Raw and Smackdown seem in a state of flux right now – hardly surprising when you consider WWE are cramming so much down the throats of their audience that nothing is being given time to settle in terms of planning. Let's find Bobby Lashley something to actually get involved in, for instance. He's been around close to a month but you'd almost forget he'd even returned after ten years. Let's see what Adrade Almas has to offer, and let's see championship matches starting to mean something again, as they did when Rollins and Miz tore the house down before WWE sent it to sleep.
WWE Backlash full results
WWE Champion AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura went to a NO CONTEST
Roman Reigns DEF Samoa Joe
Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens DEF Bobby Lashey and Braun Strowman
Smackdown Women's Champion Carmella DEF Charlotte Flair
Raw Women's Champion Nia Jax DEF Alexa Bliss
United States Champion Jeff Hardy DEF Randy Orton
Intercontinental Champion Seth Rollins DEF The Miz
Daniel Bryan DEF. Big Cass
Ruby Riott DEF Bayley (pre-show)
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