00:00The bloodline officially runs out of family members, and has to debut someone outside
00:04the Rock's WrestleMania 40 Family Tree infographic, John Cena's final WWE match ever, revealed
00:11a potential injury and more in my review of WWE Backlash 2025.
00:19Before I get into the review though, super kick that subscribe button and enable notifications
00:23to always on so you know when our podcast review of Backlash goes live, along with all
00:28the fallout on Raw tomorrow.
00:30And yes, AEW coverage too, which we will have on Thursday.
00:34Please stop hating me.
00:35Michael Cole welcomed us to Backlash in St. Louis, and introduced Wade Barrett as his co-commentator
00:40for the night, because Pat McAfee is preparing for his match against Gunther later on.
00:44So you're telling me I both get to see McAfee chopped Red Raw, and I get to listen to Wade
00:48all show?
00:49Gunther, you have now officially replaced Cody Rhodes as the number one face in the company.
00:53The United States Championship Fatal 4-Way was a great choice for the show's opening
00:57match, letting Jacob Fatu, LA Knight, Drew McIntyre and Damian Priest fight all over the
01:02arena with the NoDQ stipulation.
01:04It was also a neat dovetail from WrestleMania 41 for those in the future who are just watching
01:09the premium live events back to back.
01:11Here is technically two WrestleMania rematches, with Fatu vs. Knight and Priest vs. McIntyre.
01:17The name of the show is Backlash, after all.
01:20But they're all made fresh by combining them into one match all over the US title.
01:25The pre-existing rivalries paired off early, but the match really came alive when Fatu
01:29and McIntyre, both the most popular characters in the match despite being heels, started trading
01:34blows.
01:35Fatu then went on a brilliant run that climaxed in a dive outside and Swanton Bomb in the ring,
01:40making him seem like the biggest face of the midcard.
01:43The biggest face of the undercard, obviously, is JD McDonough.
01:46It was a big head joke.
01:48The final third of the match resorted back to the Mania feuds, with Priest brilliantly once
01:52against screwing Drew, pulling the referee out of a count at the very last nanosecond
01:57when Drew had it won after hitting a Claymore on Knight.
01:59A Claymore on Knight sounds medieval.
02:01They brawled into the crowd where Priest hit a South of Heaven on McIntyre off a platform
02:05through a table.
02:06PWInsider would later report that Drew had to be checked out backstage by medical because
02:10his head missed the table and hit the floor hard.
02:14Bryan Alvarez added that he was being evaluated for a concussion.
02:17DH described Drew as being a little banged up, but is totally fine in the post-show press
02:22conference.
02:23Which hopefully means he's alright.
02:24The spot took both Priest and McIntyre out of the finish back nearer the ring, where Knight
02:28was about to hit an elbow through the announce table, when Solo Sokoa pulled Fatu to safety.
02:33But that wasn't all.
02:35Because former New Japan star Jeff Cobb then made his debut, shockingly not wearing a black
02:39hoodie like every other member of the Bloodline when they debuted, to take out Knight.
02:44Interestingly, although Fatu went on to win the match, he looked confused, and maybe annoyed
02:49at what Solo had done.
02:51In kayfabe, he definitely didn't know that Sokoa was bringing in Cobb, which will undoubtedly
02:56cause friction.
02:57Especially if he starts to think that Solo's brought Cobb in to replace him, now that he's
03:02starting to outshine Sokoa.
03:04As a little bit of genealogy, because I'm an expert on the Anoa family tree, Tama Tonga
03:08and Tonga Loa aren't blood relations of the Anoa family by Western standards.
03:12But the Tongan's father, Haku, is considered The Rock's uncle in Samoan culture.
03:17But Cobb, like Sami Zayn and Paul Heyman and Samoa Joe, has no blood or familial connections
03:22to the real life Bloodline family.
03:24Cobb is actually from Guam, is of Filipino descent, and has built his name in New Japan.
03:29PWInsider had already reported Cobb will be part of the SmackDown roster, and he was signed
03:33by WWE the week before WrestleMania 41.
03:36Despite still being the active New Japan Tag Team Champion, which he had to vacate.
03:41It was thought WWE would use him for something urgently, like Orton's Surprise Mania opponent,
03:47considering they didn't let him drop his New Japan title.
03:50But turns out they actually didn't plan to debut him for about a month, and they probably
03:53just wanted to screw over New Japan.
03:55While backlash always looked like a fun card, the criticism coming in was that it was just
03:59too predictable.
04:00Fatou was retaining, no way they're taking the title off of Cena, Gunther beats McAfee,
04:06and Becky Lynch beats Lyra for the Intercontinental.
04:08Son of a bitch!
04:09Usually, when 5 out of 5 results look too easy to predict, wrestling is going to give you
04:14a surprise.
04:15And that's what we got here, as Lyra beat Becky with a sudden roll up at the end of
04:19a 19 minute match, the second longest of the night.
04:22It was an inspired choice.
04:24While Lyra and Becky did feud in NXT, that was in 2023, and the story WWE restarted for
04:31them at Mania, Bayley being attacked, Becky returning, her and Lyra winning the tag belt,
04:36her and Lyra losing the tag belt, and Becky turning heel, all in the space of 24 hours,
04:41was far too rushed to get you invested in their characters and the relationship between them.
04:47But Lyra has excelled most when she can tell her stories in the ring, rather than on promos.
04:52Think of her great queen of the ring final against Nia Jax last year, and her and Becky putting
04:56on a great match here of technical outwitting, finisher counters, cheating and hubris.
05:02Lyra kicking out of two man slams got her over strong.
05:05It felt like they were protecting her in defeat, but Becky constantly cheating, grabbing a chair,
05:10exposing a turnbuckle, actually led to her getting pinned rather than winning.
05:14It gives a far more interesting, more unhinged Lynch, and it gives Lyra and her IC belt its
05:20first substantial title defence.
05:22Other than have a sponsor as its focus, the ring mat was playing mind games with PENTA
05:27in the men's Intercontinental title match, where Dom complimented the Morgan & Morgan
05:30logo in the middle of the canvas by hitting Liv's Oblivion finisher at one point.
05:34But another mid-card title, another champion who's part of a faction that will likely get
05:39involved for the finish.
05:40After a Canadian destroyer from PENTA on the apron, Carlito distracted the referee for
05:44JD McDonough and Finn Balor to take out PENTA.
05:47But Finn took too long to get a chair, teasing that break up again, as you don't know whether
05:51he's doing it intentionally, and the referee went to eject them.
05:55But while that was happening, El Grande Americano hit PENTA with the loaded mask for Dirty Dom
06:00to retain.
06:01Michael Cole set the stage for his friend Pat McAfee vs the Bully Gunther by apologising.
06:07Pat is his friend, so for the first time in his career, he's going to be biased.
06:12I guess we're just going to forget about 2010-2012 heel Michael Cole, who was incredibly
06:17biased against every single babyface.
06:19To be honest, I don't mind totally wiping that from continuity, as it really boosted
06:23this match's emotional stakes.
06:25Going a surprisingly long 14 minutes, this was a very well laid out match to keep it interesting,
06:30while never once undermining Gunther's in-ring threat.
06:3395% of it was Gunther just swatting McAfee around.
06:37And despite often being quite off-putting on commentary, Pat's selling and general performance
06:42was terrific.
06:43Wade ended up doing the commentary, as Cole got more and more sucked into the drama,
06:46even went to ringside to cheer Pat on, which let Gunther drag him in the ring and threaten
06:51a powerbomb, giving McAfee a spot to save him.
06:54But ultimately, Gunther is inevitable.
06:56And he made Pat pass out in the sleeper.
06:58It didn't really feel like the end of a feud, but I also don't know where they go from
07:02here, as Gunther should be doing something more serious now.
07:06It was then I got a sense of enormous dread.
07:11I saw there were 45 minutes left on this show for John Cena vs Randy Orton.
07:18While I hated actually living through Cena and Orton's never-ending, creatively bankrupt,
07:22boring rivalry that came at the expense of pushing a whole generation of more exciting
07:26wrestlers, I can't deny this had the weight of history.
07:30It really was the last time.
07:33And yes, I could be glib and say thank god because I never want to see them wrestle again,
07:37but I actually found myself feeling loss.
07:40Like when you weirdly get nostalgic for the something that's still happening in real time.
07:44And maybe that's why I'm enjoying the Cena run more than a lot of other people.
07:48Even though it's not had The Rock involved, even though his promo segments feel repetitive,
07:52I can't shake the amazement I'm still feeling that I'm getting to watch John Cena as a
07:58heel.
07:59It's so novel and something I thought we'd never get, but I'm just grateful for seeing
08:03it play out.
08:04Kind of regardless of quality.
08:06But then they wrestled for 10 minutes and I thought actually maybe this is a bad idea.
08:10They traded chinlock spots.
08:13Randy had a 30 second headlock just a few minutes into the match.
08:18I had to check Netflix because I thought I accidentally knocked it into .75 speed.
08:23Those opening 10 minutes felt more like 10 days.
08:27Thankfully it turned out they were just storing up finishers.
08:29Because then all they did was just hit AAs and RKOs for the next 20.
08:34RKO reversed into AA.
08:35Another AA.
08:36The best RKO of the year, which Randy suddenly hit on the second of Cena's routine shoulder
08:41blocks.
08:42A punt missed into an AA.
08:43Cena missed his own punt, pushed Randy into a referee, then hit an AA.
08:47He went to use the belt, but Randy hit an RKO.
08:51The ref took another bup, Orton hit an AA on Cena onto the commentary table, which somehow
08:56broke 15 seconds after Cena hit it.
08:59And the table was working slow.
09:01Orton hit.
09:02Another AA through another table, as the match was now the smoke and mirrors of hardcore spots.
09:08Those 10 minutes honestly felt like two.
09:11RKO back in the ring.
09:12Another ref runs down, but Cena kicks out.
09:15Another ref bump.
09:16Another RKO for a visible 20 count.
09:19But all the officials, including Nick Aldis, ran down to check on the fallen refs.
09:23So Randy RKO'd all of them.
09:27Cena hits a low blow and a belt shot, which is kind of his new heel finisher, to retain.
09:41This was fun sports entertainment.
09:44All the finishers, multiple ref bumps, an authority figure getting wiped out.
09:47A random R-Truth appearance.
09:48The only thing it was missing that I feel was explicitly set up was Cena targeting Orton's
09:53family members, like Cowboy Bob Orton, as they were in the Orton family's hometown.
09:58Cena finished the show telling production to cut his music.
10:01He doesn't need music.
10:03He needs competition.
10:05Setting up the next challenger, which will be at the next PLE, Money in the Bank.
10:10And his most famous Money in the Bank opponent, CM Punk, just so happened to reference Cena
10:16on Instagram right after, and Punk has been announced for a segment on tomorrow's episode
10:21of Raw.
10:22That's very much likely Cena's next match, but his final match has potentially also been
10:27leaked.
10:28A Boston radio show has claimed that Cena Sr. try saying that five times in a row, John's
10:32father, told them that Cena's final match will take place in December at the TD Garden
10:37in Boston, which is an hour away from where Cena grew up.
10:40WWE have yet to officially announce this show, so it's unknown whether it will be a PLE or
10:45an episode of TV.
10:46WWE Backlash 2025 was 70%.
10:50Now how about you go watch something totally different, like Dom and Sully trying to kidnap
10:54the Pope in 1066 in Crusader Kings 3.
10:57Here's a clip.
10:58Oh no, so many people died, three people died.
11:02Did the Pope die?
11:03Did the Pope die?
11:04I think the Pope's fine.
11:05It might just be us and the Pope.
11:07Okay.
11:08Nachman died.
11:09Lan died.
11:10Nachman's dead.
11:11Rewal's dead.
11:12And did she die as well?
11:14Sarrazin?
11:15Not dead?
11:16Not dead.
11:17No, she lost her baby, which is very sad.
11:19Oh God.
11:20But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, we must press on.
11:25We must, we must.
11:26We must press on.
11:27It's been so dangerous.
11:28We've got no provisions.
11:29We've got no provisions.
11:30We've lost all our apples.
11:31We're still on the Pope.
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