4 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Backlash 2017

4. Cop-Out Finish

aj styles kevin owens
WWE.com

What was shaping up to be a match that competed with the United Kingdom Championship match from NXT TakeOver: Chicago was thrown a disappointing curveball when the United States Championship bout between AJ Styles and Kevin Owens ended in a countout.

After a really good-to-great match had unfolded, Styles got his foot caught in the announce table and some wires inside the table, preventing him from making it back into the ring. Owens retained his title in the countout, then got a cheapshot on AJ afterward. And just like that, the best match of Backlash had a crappy finish.

Sure, this probably will set up a rematch that might be just as good as this contest, but it’s painful sometimes when you have a really, really good match going and the ending just deflates the arena. And when your PPV is closing with Jinder Mahal, WWE Champion, you might want to reconsider that finish.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.