7 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Backlash 2023 (Review)

Does Cody's story continue? Did hometown heroes Bad Bunny, Zelina Vega triumph?

Carlito WWE
WWE.com

Someone is going to need to do an experiment to determine if Backlash really was that good of a show, or if the deafening roar of the Puerto Rico fans elevated merely good material. Just re-watch the show with the sound muted and report back.

In all seriousness, WWE delivered a really, really good show Saturday night, incorporating some of its own history into the proceedings and giving the San Juan crowd a reason to get excited several times. The matches varied between good and great, with the opener between Bianca Belair and Iyo Sky stealing the show.

Bad Bunny was the folk hero of the night, eliciting huge cheers from fans and stepping up to really be a big part of the show rather than coasting or relying purely on plunder and outside interference to get the job done. It he wasn’t already the biggest musical artist on the planet, he could probably give wrestling a go.

Cody Rhodes’ story will continue, though it did not have an emphatic statement entered into the record Saturday night. Still, at least they didn’t treat him like John Cena at SummerSlam 2014.

Overall, WWE continues to offer up solid PLEs that succeed in spite of some spotty booking. We’ll have to see if that carries over to Night of Champions.

Lets get to it…

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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.