5 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Backlash 2024 (Results & Review)

2. High Expectations, Subpar Delivery

Bayley
WWE

In what will feel like a theme here, most of the matches on Saturday’s card fell just on either side of “mid,” with the main event being the exception. Individual mileage may vary, but the WWE Women’s Championship match fell on the “blah” side of things.

The triple threat match pitting Bayley, Tiffany Stratton and Naomi against one another wasn’t bad, but given the talent in the ring, it felt like they were going at about 75% rather than an all-out war for the title. They got lost in at least one spot and had a couple stumbles, which isn’t a cardinal sin, but it did knock things down a peg.

The finish also felt anticlimactic, with Bayley and Naomi polishing Tiffany off with a 1D, setting up their big showdown… which ended about 30 seconds later with a cradle pin out of nowhere. Yes, that sort of thing should happen from time to time to remind fans that a match can end at any moment and not after a killshot finisher, but this just fell flat.

The simple way to judge this: Will anyone seriously go back and rewatch this match from start to 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.