6 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Backlash 2016

1. Bait And Switch

randy orton backlash
WWE.com

Wait. Hold on a second here…

So Randy Orton did have a concussion (or at least lingering injuries) from his SummerSlam match against Brock Lesnar and WWE still booked a match between he and Bray Wyatt despite Orton not being cleared? Are you kidding? And on a brand-specific PPV, so this was one of the few marquee matchups on the limited card.

This is just bad all-around. It makes WWE look poor for advertising Orton for three weeks despite the apparent fact he was never cleared to compete. It put Wyatt in a bad spot, as he then had to compete and ultimately lose to a 49-year-old Kane rather than potentially winning a major match against a major star. And it ran the risk of frustrating fans, though that was somewhat alleviated (as was the previous item) by Orton limping to ringside and hitting an RKO on Bray to aid Kane.

Still, this was a definite negative with Randy out like this. If WWE knew he wasn’t going to be cleared, they could have run the injury angle on SmackDown so at least they weren’t falsely advertising and then had a surprise opponent named at Backlash.

And now for the ups...

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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.