WWE Backlash 2026 Review

Linus O'Howell
14 minutes ago
4 min read

Bron Breakker VS Seth “Freakin” Rollins

WWE Backlash 2026 kicked off in style as Seth “Freakin” Rollins looked to get payback on Bron Breakker! For me, this was the match of the night, with these two putting on a majorly entertaining contest! Seth Rollins is without a doubt one of the best wrestlers of this generation, if not the best, whilst Bron Breakker is aiming to be the face of WWE for at least the next 10-15 years! Paul Heyman will always add importance whenever he watches on from ringside, also, and some of the counters in this match were superb! Bron being the one to hit the Falcon Arrow was great, Seth wrecking Bron with a Superkick on the outside was well done, whilst Rollins countering Breakker’s Spear into a Pedigree will never not be cool! The Vision did show up eventually, with Seth taking out both Austin Theory and Logan Paul with a steel chair, although that was sort of the beginning of the end for The Visionary! See, eventually, Bron Breakker would score the win with a fabulous mid-air Spear, a decision that makes perfect sense to me! This match almost went 22 minutes; that’s more like it!

Grade: B+

United States Championship: Trick Williams VS Sami Zayn

The second contest to take place on ESPN2 saw Sami Zayn look to recapture the United States Championship from the man that defeated him at WrestleMania, Trick Williams! This Florida crowd really didn’t like Sami Zayn, with multiple “Sami Sucks” chants breaking out! I will say that I did find this match to be more interesting than their WrestleMania bout, with multiple moments involving Lil Yachty being well executed! Firstly, Sami nearly stole the victory after whacking Trick with a Candy Cane Kendo Stick (whilst Yachty was accidentally distracting the referee), whilst Yachty would then get his revenge by smashing Zayn in the back with said Kendo Stick, resulting in another close near-fall! Sami would then wreck Lil Yachty with a Helluva Kick on the outside, but all of this just led to Zayn’s downfall, with Hollywood Trick delivering a Trick Shot to successfully retain his United States Championship! Hopefully, we can move on from this story now!

Grade: C+

Danhausen and ? VS The Miz and Kit Wilson

After a genuinely incredible video package, who had Danhausen found to be his Tag Team partner against The Miz and Kit Wilson? Well, it turned out to be Minihausen, with Minihausen coming out of Danhausen’s cloning machine! This then led to quite the match, with Minihausen getting in a ton of offence on Miz and Kit, with Wilson taking multiple hurricanranas to the outside! Kit Wilson then put Minihausen back in the cloning machine, resulting in even more Minihausens appearing (the same guys from WrestleMania), before we got my favourite moment of the night as Kit Wilson used a mirror to reflect MH’s curse onto himself! However, despite all of this, Danhausen still ended up winning this match as he celebrated with his friends on the ramp! Personally, I don’t know how to feel about this! I appreciated the silliness, I thought the video package was excellent, and that mirror spot was genuinely genius! However, I do feel like this would’ve worked an awful lot better had it just happened on SmackDown, as the decision to have this match take place on a Premium Live Event made people feel like a big name was going to partner Danhausen! So ultimately, this was both fun and disappointing!

Grade: C

Asuka VS Iyo Sky

The penultimate match of the night saw Iyo Sky finally go one-on-one with Asuka! I have very mixed feelings about this match; I definitely got more into it as it went on, I mean it got over 18 minutes, and there’s no doubt that these are two of the best female wrestlers of all time! However, the peak of this feud should’ve been paid off at WrestleMania, with Kairi Sane involved, so having neither of those things happen makes this feud feel like it’s gone on for too long! Also, I think everyone expected Kairi Sane to show up at some point during this match, and yet, she didn’t! Instead, Iyo just won clean following an Over the Moonsault, leading to both women hugging it out after the match! From a storyline perspective, that literally makes zero sense; it completely undermines the entire storyline of Asuka treating Kairi Sane like trash, the entire reason that Iyo Sky went after her in the first place! However, I’ve seen a lot of things after the show about this potentially being Asuka’s retirement match in WWE, which if it is, then this really should’ve happened at WrestleMania! However, we will end it on a positive note by praising Asuka, because she truly is one of the greatest! Oh, and also, that spot where Iyo blocked Asuka's mist attempt with Wade Barrett's notebook was amazing!

Grade: C+

World Heavyweight Championship: Roman Reigns VS Jacob Fatu

After John Cena announced “The John Cena Classic”, it was Main Event time at WWE Backlash 2026 as Jacob Fatu challenged Roman Reigns for the World Heavyweight Championship! I say for the World Heavyweight Championship, but we know it was for an awful lot more than just that, with the leader of the family basically on the line! The build to this match has seen Jacob Fatu look like a beast against Roman Reigns; he’s the one who’s continually stood tall, and that sort of carried on here! Roman struggled to handle Jacob’s ferocity, with Fatu looking every bit like he could end the night as World Champion! The only problem, though, was that we knew that that wasn’t going to happen, meaning Reigns kicking out of a Mighty Moonsault wasn’t exactly surprising! Reigns then used his Heel tactics to good use, grabbing onto the referee’s shirt whilst in the Tongan Death Grip, before he sent Fatu face-first into an exposed turnbuckle! The Tribal Chief then followed that up with a Spear to The Samoan Werewolf, successfully retaining his World Heavyweight Title! However, you wouldn’t have known that Roman Reigns had won based solely on post-match pictures, as Jacob Fatu was up to his feet first! Jacob then snapped, putting his hands on both the referee and Adam Pearce, as Backlash went off the air with Fatu once again choking out Reigns! I’m intrigued to see where the second match between these two takes place!