10 Best WrestleMania Rematches That Ever Happened At Backlash
Backlash is often full of WrestleMania rematches, some of which are even better than the originals.
For over 20 years, Backlash has often been the show to follow WrestleMania. It's connection to the Showcase of the Immortals is now so embedded that the event has been rebranded WrestleMania Backlash. As a result, Backlash often tends to live in the shadow of its immediate predecessor, featuring matches and feuds that were not fully wrapped up a month earlier, or in some cases stretched out for another few weeks. Indeed, WrestleMania Backlash 2022 already boasts three straight rematches from this year's 'Mania.
This is not unusual; since the very first Backlash in April 1999, the event has been populated by rematches. Some of these are slightly tweaked versions of WrestleMania encounters, such as triple threat matches that drop a participant to become a singles match and vice-versa, or two singles matches combining to create a tag team match. Very often, however, we get straight up rematches, seeing the same participants from the biggest show of the year square up to one another again.
These Backlash do-overs can often be even better than the original, correcting mistakes from the previous clash or just be an enjoyable rerun of a tremendous first encounter. Whether the same will be true of the 2022 version remains to be seen.
10. Kane Vs. Chavo Guerrero (Backlash 2008)
Chavo Guerrero had been enjoying a good run on the ECW brand as champion, defeating CM Punk on several occasions over the winter of 2007-2008. Becoming part of La Familia - a faction centred around Vickie Guerrero and Edge - Chavo would often have the help of Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder despite them being part of the SmackDown! roster. With this momentum behind him, Guerrero made history by taking part in the only ECW Championship match in WrestleMania history, only to lose the title to Kane in eleven seconds.
Their rematch at Backlash was instantly better for running longer than a few seconds. Chavo had enlisted the services of Bam Neely as a bodyguard to help him overcome Kane's size and strength advantage, and as a result managed to last nearly nine minutes. The bout focused around Guerrero trying to take out Kane's knee, and even saw Chavo nail the Big Red Machine with a patented frog splash. It was not enough, however, as Kane quickly chokeslammed Guerrero to retain the title and definitively end the feud.
Whilst certainly not a classic, this Backlash rematch was a massive improvement on the hardly-there original, providing some decent in-ring action and pay-per-view time for the flagging ECW relaunch.