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

4. LWO Reinforcements

For the longest time, WWE leaning into the locations where their events took place amounted to heels bashing the local sports team and hometown superstars losing in front of friends and family.

But lately, WWE has used geography to their advantage, leaning into major matches for hometown wrestlers and playing into the flavor of where the event is taking place. Puerto Rico has a rich wrestling heritage, so it would have been a smart move to incorporate some of WWE’s own crossover history into Backlash.

And for once, they did. During the Bad Bunny/Damian Priest street fight, the Judgment Day ran down to attack the Grammy-winning artist. Rey Mysterio came down for the save, but he was overwhelmed. This brought San Juan native Carlito out to even the odds to a thunderous pop, sporting an LWO T-shirt.

Rey and Carlito dispatched with Finn Balor and Dominik Mysterio, who were met at the entrance by Savio Vega… and the rest of the LWO. Judgment Day was wiped out by sheer numbers, a 6-on-2 mugging.

What a perfect concept: The LWO could have tons of honorary members who show up whenever WWE happens to be in their backyard. No one is expecting Savio to be on SmackDown next week, but if WWE swings back to Puerto Rico in a year and LWO is still thriving, he could easily pop up again.

Plus it was just cool to see Carlito in a WWE ring again.