Backlash 2024: Lyon Turned a Five-Match Card Into Something Much Bigger

The opener begins before the match can become a match. Owens and Orton brawl with Solo Sikoa and Tama Tonga before the bell, Nick Aldis arrives and converts the scheduled tag into a Street Fight. That decision is less a stipulation change than an acknowledgment that conventional rules would be dishonest after the first thirty seconds.

The violence stays readable despite the furniture. Owens' frog splash through a table, Orton's RKO on the announce table and the fisherman buster onto a pile of seated chairs all feel like escalating attempts to end a fight rather than random weapon inventory. Tama Tonga looks comfortable in his WWE in-ring debut because the match lets him be violent before asking him to be polished.

The finish gives the new Bloodline exactly what it needs. Owens appears to have Tonga beaten after the chair pile, only for Tonga Loa to pull the referee from the ring and attack Owens and Orton. Solo hits the Spinning Solo onto a chair and the Samoan Spike for the win.

The match is long and occasionally excessive, but Lyon never lets it feel slow. Tonga Loa's return creates the only true surprise on a card built around predictable outcomes, and the Bloodline leaves with another body and a clearer identity. As an opener, it does almost everything required.

The triple threat avoids one of the format's common failures by keeping all three wrestlers meaningfully involved. Stratton is the athletic accelerant, Naomi supplies speed and inventive counters, and Bayley works as the champion trying to keep two different styles from turning the match into chaos she cannot control. The combinations feel planned without becoming obviously cooperative.

Stratton's double handspring elbow and cartwheel Alabama Slam sequences provide the biggest highlights, while Naomi's ringside spear and split-legged moonsault keep her from disappearing between Bayley-Stratton exchanges. Bayley is less flashy but repeatedly arrives at the right moment to interrupt a finish or redirect momentum.

The closing sequence is compact and smart. Stratton misses the Prettiest Moonsault Ever after Bayley and Naomi move, the two veterans hit a 3D-style combination, and Naomi's La Magistral becomes Bayley's reversal for the pin. Stratton avoids taking the fall while Bayley gets the successful defense.

The match matters because nobody leaves smaller. Bayley remains champion, Naomi looks competitive and Stratton looks fully established as a title-level threat only months after leaving NXT. The crowd gives the match enough energy to make a thirteen-minute defense feel important.

Jey Uso's entrance begins the match with a level of spectacle the wrestling spends fifteen minutes trying to equal. Lyon turns the arena into a synchronized wave of arms and chants, giving Jey the aura of a challenger who might actually win even though Priest is only weeks into his reign. That emotional starting point does a lot of work.

Priest and Jey settle into a conventional power-versus-speed structure. Jey's superkicks, spears and Uso Splash attempts generate the loudest near falls, while Priest's Razor's Edge and South of Heaven give him enough offense to look like a champion rather than a cash-in caretaker. The match is solid without becoming especially smooth.

The Judgment Day interference becomes both problem and story. JD McDonagh saves Priest with the foot on the rope, Finn Bálor distracts Jey, and Priest repeatedly shows irritation that they are involving themselves. Jey spends enough time fighting them that Priest can eventually hit the avalanche South of Heaven for the retention.

The interference keeps the match below the card's strongest work, but it also gives Priest's character somewhere to go. After the bell he stops Bálor and McDonagh from continuing the attack. The champion retains while looking increasingly uncomfortable with the people supposedly helping him.

The women's tag-title match has the right destination and a difficult journey. Asuka and Kairi Sane are the experienced champions, Belair is the established star and Cargill is still learning WWE's tag structure in real time. That difference becomes visible during several sequences where positioning and legal-wrestler clarity begin to fray.

The match is strongest when it simplifies. Belair's power, Sane's aerial offense and Asuka's strikes all read cleanly, while Cargill's hot-tag power gives the crowd exactly the explosion it wants. Problems appear when the match tries to layer submissions, rapid tags and four-person combinations at once.

The champions nearly retain after the backbreaker and InSANE Elbow combination, but Cargill breaks the fall and eventually catches Sane out of the air for Jaded. Belair follows with the K.O.D. on Asuka and scores the pin to win the titles. The final sequence is decisive enough to restore some order.

The title change is historically useful and emotionally successful, especially as Cargill's first WWE championship. The match itself is the card's clear low point because the rough stretches last too long to dismiss. Seventeen minutes asks for more cohesion than the teams can consistently provide.

Rhodes and Styles wrestle the main event like two men who know the result is obvious and therefore cannot rely on surprise. They begin patiently, establish the shoulder and back as targets, and let the crowd fill space rather than rushing toward signature moves. The match gains credibility because it refuses to behave as though every thirty seconds require a near fall.

Styles gradually increases the pressure with the apron brainbuster, Ushigoroshi, springboard 450 and Burning Hammer. Rhodes responds with the powerbomb through the French announce table, Bionic Elbow and increasingly ambitious Cody Cutter variations. The work feels like escalation rather than move accumulation.

The Burning Hammer kickout at one is the one decision that breaks the match's restraint. Rhodes immediately fires up from a move that has been presented historically as devastating, which creates a moment of spectacle at the expense of the logic surrounding it. Fortunately, the match returns quickly to its established rhythm.

Rhodes ultimately hits the Super Cody Cutter from the top rope and one Cross Rhodes for the clean pin. Styles does not need to survive the finisher repeatedly because the match has already shown how difficult it is for Rhodes to reach it. That restraint makes the ending stronger.

As the first premium-event defense of Rhodes' reign, the match succeeds completely. Styles looks like an elite challenger, Rhodes wins without assistance, and Lyon gives a conventional championship match the atmosphere of something much less conventional. It is the best match on the show and one of the strongest early defenses of the reign.