WWE Backlash 2023: How Did Bad Bunny Do?

they get another one point five probably not. WWE downs Backlash twenty twenty three as highest grossing and most viewed

Backlash event in company history. Ae W has now confirmed that All in two has sold sixty thousand tickets with a seven point seven million dollar value, all without even booking a single match, although we can guess a couple of levelm Finally, the WWE has announced that there will be a tournament to crown a new World Heavyweight Champion and the finals will take place at Night of Champions

in Saudi Arabia on May twenty seventh. Because they paid a lot more than the one point five Puerto Rico did, and that is the news. Good evening and good luck. All right, you guys, welcome to the show. Thanks to Big Biff. He's awesome as always, and let's begin with a little backlash recap. First things first, this pay per view was friggin' awesome. The crowd in Puerto Rico was so hot. I don't want to be a prisoner of the moment and be like, man, that was the best

ww crowd ever. Because I still feel like Canada and England are the most hype places because they never well they don't never get it, but they don't get it enough right, they don't get the wrestling up there enough. But Puerto Rico had a similar vibe and the difference was the passion's equal, right, but you just felt like they care about wrestling in a similar fashion of the Canadians because they both kind of they don't take credit for it. Puerto Rico doesn't take credit for it, but

the wrestling there is unique different. Corey Graves talked about the home of hardcore in his History lesson of the Week. I love Corey Graves by the way. I think he just does an excellent job. From the first day he started all the way till now, I've always loved him. And he got call the Titus sliding under the ring at the forty Man Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia and lost his shit, so that that endeared him to my heart,

my cold black heart. But the crowd here was insane, the love that they gave these wrestlers, the love that they gave their own. When Zelina Vega came in, it was just it blew me away. The Carlito spot, the Vega spot, like all this. They just showed so much love. It was great to see Mexicans and Puerto Ricans treating each other as equals and understanding that we're all in this together. Remember, it's just it's this other culture that

has separated us, and we've accepted that. So I feel like every generation, every new generation, cares a little bit less about that stuff so long as you're cool, right, And that's what this felt like. It was like, Yo, we're all Latinos, this is awesome, let's rock and roll. When I was coming up, y'all talk mad shit about each other and that needs to stop. And I'm sure you still do it in fun and jes but the

best of needs to stop. And I thought this was a beautiful sort of congregation of Latinos to express their love for something that everyone there you know, probably still things is real. So I loved every minute of this show. I thought it was fantastic. But we're going to start with the world Women's World Champion over four hundred days, she is now the one, the only Bianca bell Air,

the champ versus EO Sky from Damage Control. And let me tell you right now, they burnt the house down in the very first match these two women, and the crowd is not equally responsible, but they played a huge part in this match right away. And I don't know why, I don't know for certain, but right away, the love that they gave EO Sky proves what we've been saying

for a while. Like heels and babyfaces, the fans pick who they like based on skill, mike skill, ring skill, ability to stay in the moment, all that stuff your social media game is it tight? Is a weak? All that stuff They decide if you're if you're a heel to them or a he or a babyface to them, hero or a villain. And they embraced Eo at a level that I haven't seen since she's been in I thought I was Io's biggest fan. I'm I'm not even close. I've spoken about her a million times on this podcast.

I love Eo Sky Io Surey from NXT and this crowd was so hyped for her. You would have thought she had been given a six month storyline of her climbing the mountain to earn this championship and had to go through hell and back and she finally got the

match and here comes the bad guy, Bioncabella Air. Now I won't say this, I'm not gonna say they were more booze than cheers, but they decided who they were rooting for, and it was Eo Sky Biancabella Air got some got some cheers because you got to respect what she's doing in the ring, because her work in there is getting better and better. I think her mic work kind of peaked, but that doesn't mean that's as good

as it's going to get. It just means she hasn't been challenged with the right kind of promo or the right story to take her to the next level. She's most certainly an artist, though, and artists evolved, so long as we are brought a new challenge, and I think that's what she needs. But in the ring, her work's super clean. Although I didn't think I would love the match as much as I did, this was from Jump Street. These girls owned the crowd. The crowd felt like they

were a part of the match. EO let them know that their love was appreciated. But she didn't do it in like a ah shucks kind of way. She did it like, yeah, that's right, I'm badass and you know it. So she maintained her heeled dignity. The crowd just wasn't having it. They loved her and this girl. For those of you who haven't watched wrestling, if you have the Peacock app go on the replay right now. By the way,

this is my match of the week. My match of the week Eo Sky versus the Champion Bianca bell Air. Go on Peacock. It's the very first match of the pay per view. You won't have to search or waste any time or get frustrated trying to find it. It's the very first match. Both women are phenomenal athletes. The gymnastics that EO does, the aerial stuff that she does is second to none there but for all you fellas out there. They're both dropped dead gorgeous. For all you

mothers out there, They're not Barbie Doll. I have to be perfect kind of figures. Like Bianca bell Air is a friggin' athlete, y'all. She's not skinny. She's not fat, but she's not skinny. She's jacked. She lifts, you could tell she dead lifts, squats, the leg press, the leg extension, the hamstring curl whatever. I don't do all these exercises, so I'm kind of guessing. The calf raise, the calf

raise machine. She does all this stuff. She's super buff, not like crazy buff, but you could tell she was a college athlete. And then you got EO Sky, who's also in great shape but doesn't have near the chiseled physique that Bianca bel Air has. But she as the smaller wrestler. The story she tells, in order to do damage, she has to put herself and Horm's way and do

a lot of aerial stuff. You guys, if your longtime listeners have heard me talk about Jeff Hardy and the philosophy of how a Jeff Hardy match plays in a win and a loss, is very similar he's going to take a beating and he's going to do some crazy stuff to give you one too, but it's gonna hurt him as well. And EO is in that exact same category, but her aerial work is and she does a lot

of it. She does this blind back layout, which is basically a back flip where you keep your legs super straight, and she's just trusting that her opponent's there and ready, and it's so sick. She did it in this match, and when she landed you can hear the impact. So when people say it's fake, I go, yeah, I feel you.

It's choreographed. But they're taking like huge shots. I've seen so many wrestlers with legit black eyes and broken noses and busted teeth and real blood not from a razor but from getting punched in the face, So that shit is real. It's just the finishes that are choreographed and the reason why they fight is fake. But there's nothing vague about black eyes there. She landed so great on this, It sounded great, it looked great. They gave the girls

a lot of time. EO injurers Bianco Bellair's shoulder at one point, and they spent the rest of the match, kind of using that as the story point in the match, so you can kind of understand some of the psychology there for new listeners and new fans. Every minute of it, the crowd was going crazy. They would do their cheers and booze on the back and forth shots and you could tell it was very pro yo. But this was a beautiful match. I would encourage everybody to go and

watch it. You could just tell both women had an absolute blast doing it. Bianca might have been a little surprised, but it could have been fake surprise and she could have been enjoying the moment just as much. But great match. Was my match of the week. Seth Rollins versus Omas, this would have been Jeff Dye's match of the week. I guarantee you he loves Omas. He loves the giant, huge guys. If you're six nine, sixth now, he wouldn't even give that six ' ten or over. He's going

to have big time love for you. He loves the big guys. And you know that your boy loves Seth. Freaking I'll dress how I want. I don't care what Freddy says Rollins, but guess what Seth In Puerto Rico. You came correct, sir. You dressed like a professional wrestler and not like someone that I would see at a comic convention. He came out in sweet wrestling pants. They were like, I don't even know. It's like silver and black. I couldn't tell what the design was, but they looked

super cool. And then he has this like leather black leather jacket with some like black fur on it. So he still got it a little bit of like the what is it the style? The new style out there, but he kept it contained, he kept it composed because he was dealing with the Nigeria nightmare. I did not think I was going to like this match. I was almost dreading Jeff saying how much he loved it, because he'll love it no matter what because his guy's in the match. They have now done it twice in a

row with Omas. He has lost and still looked good while losing. The first time was with Brock Lesner at WrestleMania. I didn't think I would enjoy that match, but they told a pretty quick, decent story and then income Seth Rollins and the crowds cheer in the crowd got Seth zass whip by the way they sang for so long, Omas got tired of it and just blasted on Seth Rollins before the match even started, while his eyes are

closed and he's just soaking up the love. And then he's down on the ground looking up like, what the hell you son of a bitch? Match hasn't even started yet, and the rest are you good? I would have said no, Seth Rawlins says, I'm good, takes off his cool jacket that fit and looked like it was made for a man, and started the damn match and he takes an absolute whooping for I don't even know five minutes before he even does a little bit of damage. Seth Rollins, of

course is going to carry the match. He's one of the best wrestlers in the world. But he made omass look so good. He made an iron claw look good. I haven't seen an iron claw look good in over twenty five years. I wasn't a big fan of the of the Great Collie iron claw. No matter what the guys did to sell, it just never looked or the vice grip they called it for Great Collie, it never

looked as legit. Right. He would use two hands, that's why they called it a vice grip and not an iron claw, but this iron claw Man Seth made it look great, O Musk credit to him too, Man. He made it look good. It looked legit. It looked like the old school Nintendo's regular first Nintendo Entertainment System Pro wrestling.

There was a guy but he had an iron claw move and you could do it like thirty times in a to your homies and then they'd just be on the mat forever and they just like just hurry up and pin me. You'd be like, nah, buddy, we're gonna count how long you're down for. Hey, guys will get so hot. You could do another guy luchador named Starman, and he would do this backflip kick and you could just it was down in a and you could do it so fast. You just hit a fool like three

hundred times with it. He'd be down for like three minutes straight and you just don't pin him. It was beautiful, Ah, the old days, the eighties. This match was awesome. Seth Rollins did a curb stomp or they just call it the stomp. Did the stomp. He did two and Omas kicked out what he did a frog splash Omoss kicked out at one what deal with it? It took a full on stomp from I'm guessing I think it was the top turn buckle and he finally gets the win.

Seth Rollins with the victory. Another loss for Omas, but I will say this, he looked good. They made him look good twice in a row and he lost. A lot of people are gonna say, well, if you need him to be legit a legit threat that, you know he's got to. He's got to win some of these matches. Yeah, but I don't think he's got to beat Brock friggin Lesnar or Seth Friggan Rollins. You know what I'm saying. Like,

he took a couple losses. Now he could take a step back and start beating some some mid card dudes and then he makes his next run when he's more ready and more prepared for the top dogs. It's okay to'll lose to the top dogs. You guys are being kind of crazy about this. Don't forget who the top

dogs are. Moving on? Uh. The United States Championship was a triple threat match with Austin Theory as the champ, Bobby Lashley and Bronson Reid certainly wasn't my favorite match of the night, But I will say this, Bobby Lashley's entrance is so it's so ridiculous. I don't mean that in a bad way, Like he's he looks like a Greek god and they tined the lights on him, and he's like standing on a spin podium, so he looks like a statue in the Vatican or some or some

shit like. It's just he looks exactly the same as he did when he debuted in the WWE twenty years ago? Was it twenty years ago? Is that how I'm getting old, y'all. I'm gonna have to start getting that hymns. The hairline starting to go getting old, y'all. I'm gonna have to hems it up. I have to get on the testosterone

replacement and be fifty years old, just fready. Bobby Lashley is an absolute monster that I will never look like, and I will always wish that I did, even if it was just I'm sure my joints couldn't handle it. But if I could be buff just once, man, it would be so nice. This match wasn't my favorite. I don't like Bobby getting thrown out of the ring. But I also don't want to see Bobby with his shoulders on the mat taking the one two three, So I guess they did it perfectly and I'm just bitching for

no reason. But it wasn't my favorite match. We're not going to spend a lot of time talking about it. Here we go, y'all, the SmackDown Women's Championship. The champion Ria Ripley, having defeated Charlotte Flair, the Great, the great, greatest female champion of all time, Charlotte Flair. I think she already has the most title reigns of all women, and soon we'll pass her father. Well, she was defeated by the Australian Ria Ripley, who you know, mister Jeff

Dye and I love we love you, Ria Ripley. We think you're awesome. But on this day I had to root for Zelina Vega, where my cousins will call me a disgrace to the race, because there felt like that this was being of Puerto Rican descent, This was super special to see someone who's far more Puerto Rican than

I am. Just a Puerto Rican. But as my loving cousins used to say as well, but she is a Puerto Rican girl, and to wrestle in front of an arena of seventeen thousand Puerto Ricans who all love you, and you come out and your wardrobe is basically the Puerto Rican flag. You could see it right away. She couldn't hold it together, like her eyes welled up with tears like seanpainn and dead man walking right before they kill him. And he wouldn't give you the tear because

he's such a sick actor. He like sucked it back in somehow. But you saw the whole eye well up. That was Zelena Vega in this moment, and she was a dead man wagga because you had to face Soria Ripley in the freaking ring, and Rihea's not losing to anyone. Bianca will lose before before Rio Ripley does, for sure. So Zelena comes in the crowd is just so hot, so hot. It was also awesome seeing Ria Ripley with an I'm your Mommy shirt in Puerto Rico. By the way,

that was just irony at its greatest. This was not a long match. I think it was about ten to twelve minutes. She got a couple good moves in there, She got the six one nine with her knees instead of with the feet, so that was kind of cool. She did a nice eddie shimmy and then jumping knees into Rhea's chest and then smashed her down on the ground. But this was Ria's night. Ria is the champ for a reason. She is the total package. She has another

girl who's not another Barbie doll. All you mother's out there and for you girl, dad's out there. She's a good role model for young strong women. She's a bigger girl. I'm not saying she's fat, she's thick, she's in good shape. This was Ria's night, not a back and forth match, probably an eighty twenty match eighty Ria twenties Selena. But it was the end of this match that was the

beautiful part. And she slams Alena down boom what two three, and she got She got out of the ring so quickly because she knew what this moment was going to be, So kudos to the real life real Ripley, I don't know your real name. She got out of her and really fast and allowed Selena Vega to have this moment with the crowd that could have lasted the rest of the show. Selena eventually got out of there after I

thought it was almost too quick. I thought she could have had another sixty seconds because the crowd wasn't getting quieter and this, and then she finally broke down that she couldn't. She's not look Champagne is Champagne for a reason. Selena Vega is not quite at the Champagne level. And this time she couldn't suck the tear back in. The tear flowed and we love you, Zelena. You deserve that

moment you did. Everybody so proud. And it's weird to say I'm proud of people that I'm not related to, but I just felt a great deal of pride in that last moment, even though she lost, like the love that the crowd gave her it was. It was really powerful and just a really nice moment in wrestling. Wasn't the best match of the night, but it didn't matter because the moment was the biggest moment of the night, well second biggest, because the next match was a San

Juan street fight with Damian Priest professional wrestler. Right, that's what he does. He fights versus Music, Sensation, Bad Bunny or Tonight anyway, he was a good Bunny because he was a good guy and Damian Priest was the bad guy. This was a really good match. I don't know how these celebs are doing it. They must be committed and or incredibly just athletically gifted as well and just picked a different a different career path to go down. I don't know. I've heard a lot of people going who's

better Logan or Bad Bunny. I don't know. I don't want to be a prisoner of the moment and say bad Bunny because Logan Paul's moves look really really clean. Logan also did the job and lost to Seth Rollins, whereas Bad Bunny won, but the way he won was beautiful. Was like every Puerto Rican but me came out to help him. This match and the story they told was definitely superior to the WrestleMania match between Logan and Seth

with the KSI interference, definitely a superior story. The match itself was way better, way better, and the amount of cameos they had from the LWO and Ray to Vega took my man Carlito, who I used to write for back in the day. I wrote him and his brother named his brother Primo, because they were gonna give him some stupid name, and I wrote their first storyline to the Championship. I was the first thing that I didn't book. I didn't book it, but I pitched it, got it.

Michael Freebert ps Hayes booked it, and I wrote it according to his booking. But he came out and got like a stone cold Steve Austin pop because that's his people. Man. His father is like wow, his father's kind of like my father in regards that we both are legacy kids and had to follow in tremendous footsteps. His father was the biggest wrestling promoter in Puerto Rico and wrestled I think for Vince's dad and Vince at one point, but

he was huge. Carlos Cologne was his name. For those who don't know, you can google the history on it. You'll learn more about it than I know. But Carlito is his son and had to walk in that shadow. I wouldn't say we bonded over that, but there was a no because we weren't like bros. But there was like a nod to one another because we both kind of had similar weight on our shoulders back when back

when I worked there, But he came in. He had two or three great moments in there, all three opportunities opportunities he had, he killed him. The crowd was so hyped and it helped lead Bad Bunny to the victory. I don't want to like celebrities in wrestling, and I think it's David Arquette's fault. I've since forgiven David as

I hope y'all forgive him too. I think he's contributed enough goodwill now and I think if we're all honest with ourselves and we were pitched becoming the world champion in the moment, it would be damn hard to say no. So I think he deserves forgiveness and a lot of latitude. And since then he has done a lot of good stuff for wrestling. I like David a lot. I'm just kind of half playing with him here. Man. This match was good. It was almost my match of the week.

It was almost my match of the week. A professional wrestling match with a musician, a Grammy winning musician, Freddie all Right, sorry, damn, a Grammy winning musician, and he was in a professional wrestling match. And it wasn't like a comedy match. Like Andy Kaufman or the Jackass guys. It was legit and he won, and it was believable the way he won. Damian Priest hurts his knee halfway through the match. Bad Bunny takes advantage of it. That's

what hampers the match. Then he has to deal with you know five, I have six other dudes that are all there to help him. Granted he had two of his own Damien Prisett, two of his own guys come and try to help him at one point, but still they made it to where Damien didn't look like shit and Bad Bunny got to shine. You can't have you can't have Zelina lose and Bad Bunny lose in the same night. That would just why would you go to

Puerto Rico. They paid you one point five million. I should have thought about this before I said they were going to lose last week on the show. You can't get one point five million dollars from a place and then have all their guys lose. That leads us to the main main event brock Listener versus Cody Rhodes, and I am relieved and glad to say that my friend's prediction of the Hard Time storyline with Cody Rhodes was incorrect. Thank god, he got to look good, he got to

look strong. He didn't get to win with his finisher, which protects Brock. It was bloody, which was good. I was good. And I don't know if I don't know if Cody knows he did this, but he did the Santino Morella walk when he was at Did anybody see this? Did anybody else see this? I think he was just like pumping himself up and so he was pumping his arms up and down like a like chew train. He was out, they were outside of the ring and he's walking over to the stairs and full on send. It

looked like Santino Morella. And there's no way he was doing it as a tribute to Santino Morella. He just did it. I was really glad to see Cody win. I was really glad to see Cody look strong. I love the new brock Lessener who doesn't have to win all the time. It doesn't hurt Brock to lose. It really doesn't hurt Brocklessener to lose. Everybody knows who the hell he is and what the hell he could do to anybody. He wants at any time, so I think

it only helps people out. It makes Cody look fantastic. It helps prepare Cody for not the next chapter, because I think he's not. I don't believe he's done with Brock yet. They might do three matches like he did with seth Rawlins. But it just prepares him and makes him an even more credible opponent for Roman when I think he eventually does chase that title down and get to bring that home for his family, which is really cool. This pay per view is amazing. All the wrestlers got love.

The show was fantastic. I don't know when we'll see them there again. Tourism boards are are are tricky. When I worked for the WWE, they weren't big on trying to go to Puerto Rico period. I think they've gone once as far as television goes since I since I left the company, which was an oh nine, I don't remember, maybe twenty ten, I don't know. So it's gonna be tricky because you're not Puerto Rico is not the richest territory on the planet. You know. They just suffered a

try tremendous natural catastrophe. It's not a wealthy place. The Tourism Board paid one point five for this show. The Saudi's paid upwards and above forty million for the shows that they that they received there. It's a publicly traded company. They're going to more than likely go where the money is and you can't bring I don't believe it any

tourism board would bring the same showback every year. I think they would try to diversify that and bring in music sometimes you know, art shows that kind of you know, especially in Puerto Rico. So I don't know if they would spend that much money because that could be their whole budget, you know what I mean. And the wwe did them right, spoke about how beautiful it is there and how wonderful the people are shout out to Corey Graves again showed the people mad love and yeah, I

just I don't know. If I would love for it to be a yearly thing. It would be cool if Backlash had a home and that home was Puerto Rico, but that's I don't think that's feasible in the modern business world. And if you ask me why, I tell you I don't know. I just don't think it's feasible.

I think they're going to chase the money and when people see these events do well meaning other countries tourism boards, then they're going to offer more than one point five million, and all of a sudden you might see, you know, backlash. And I don't know Tim Buck too, because they gave him four million dollars and beat everybody else's offer. So so yeah, I hope they go back. I thought the crowd definitely showed that they can sell out and that they can show up, and they showed out when the

matches started, so hopefully that that counts for something. Don't know how much it is when they go haha, already got your money, but you never know. I wish them the best. There's no hot tag for you guys this week because Jeff's not here. I just have cold tags and I don't know where he's performing next weekend, but if you go to jeffd Comedy you can check it out and see his schedule there. As for me, I got nothing belove for you babies. I'll talk to everybody soon.

Thanks for listening to another episode of Wrestling with Freddie today. I have no friends peace. This has been a production of Iheart'smichaeltura podcast network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.