7 Match Star Ratings For WWE WrestleMania Backlash
5. Dolph Ziggler & Bobby Roode Vs. Rey & Dominik Mysterio - SmackDown Tag Team Title Match
A glorified, protracted and searingly predictable handicap match.
On a night on which WWE told the most painfully obvious stories in its overplayed handbook, this match, unlike the pair of Triple Threats, didn't deliver anywhere near enough to justify it.
Elements of this elicited the mildest of reactions - Dolph Ziggler timed a creative, cool-looking Superkick cut-off damn well, for example - but the structure was so basic and worn and inexplicably long that even Rey, all-time great babyface, couldn't summon the sympathy with which these matches live and die, particularly since the spectre of the "injured" Dominik Mysterio was never too far away.
And when he returned to what constituted the action, he did so by...touching his ribs a little bit while wearing no discernible expression on his face. This was a failed test. He has done remarkably well to fit seamlessly into WWE as a mechanically sound up-and-comer, given his level of experience, but wrestling is infinitely more than the fundamentals.
He didn't look like had withstood anything, nor did he look like he was persevering. This was rote stuff emoted poorly. All wrestling needs crowds to function properly, but this story beat more than most. That might scan as kind. This was beyond Dominik.
Emotion is crucial to transcend the trope, and there was no emotion to this at all.
Star Rating: ★★¼