274. Stone Cold Steve Austin (c) vs The Rock (No Disqualification Bout for the WWF Championship, WWE Backlash 1999)

The crowd at Backlash France was far too overbearing for my liking. Sure, they paid hundreds of euros for their tickets (how else would the event take the biggest gate in WWE history from an audience of 12,000 people?), but that quickly spoiled the event for me…especially the main event between Cody Rhodes and AJ Styles (click here for my review). A crowd is supposed to enhance the atmosphere of a bout. So I went back to a classic Backlash main event, that between Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock at Backlash 1999, to see how the crowd reacted during another hot period of WWE (The Attitude Era).

273. Kevin Owens and Randy Orton vs Solo Sikoa and Tama Tonga (WWE Backlash 2024)

Solo Sikoa, without Roman Reigns and Jimmy Uso, seems to be steering ahead with his own version of The Bloodline. What are we calling the new version of The Bloodline? The New Bloodline? Bloodline 2? Bloodlines? Bloodline: Resurrection? At Backlash France, Sikoa and Tama Tonga went two on two with the pairing of Randy Orton and Kevin Owens in the opening bout. Within minutes, Smackdown General Manager Nick Aldis made it a No Disqualification match. And it was wild, raucous, and thrilling.

272. Cody Rhodes (c) vs AJ Styles (WWE Undisputed Championship, WWE Backlash 2024)

WWE Backlash France (is that it’s official name?) has been and gone…and it was fun show. The opener was definitely my favourite bout of the night, pitting The (New) Bloodline vs Kevin Owens and Randy Orton. I’ll probably write about that some other time. Jey Uso put in his second best singles bout against Damien Priest (his best? Against Roman Reigns at Clash of Champions 202-click here for my review). And the main event was…how do I describe it? Well, I found it difficult to concentrate on it thanks to the irritating crowd…

271. Roman Reigns (c) vs AJ Styles (Extreme Rules Match for the WWE Championship, WWE Extreme Rules 2016)

At WWE Backlash 2024, Cody Rhodes will defend his WWE Undisputed Championship against AJ Styles. Does this qualify as a dream match? This is the first time the two had ever competed in a singles match together. I was quite shocked at that, to be honest. I assumed they net on the indies at some point…but Cody left WWE not too long after Styles joined WWE. In fact, Coidt left shortly before Extreme Rules 2016…when Styles took on WWE Champion Roman Reigns for the title. It’s a match I remember thoroughly enjoying, so why not go back and rewatch it?

270. Triple H (c) vs The Rock (WWF Championship Match, WWF Backlash 2000)

This Saturday, WWE will hold their first ever PLE in France with Backlash 2024. The history of Backlash is a PPV/PLE full of rematches from WrestleMania (hence the name…). Sometimes, it has given us what we actually wanted from WrestleMania. Case in point: Backlash 2000. At WrestleMania 2000, for no reason other than to get the entire McMahon family in the main event, we had a Four Way Elimination match for Triple H’s WWE Championship (against The Rock, a recently retired Mick Foley and The Big Show). A month later at Backlash, we got the singles match that should have main evented ‘Mania: Triple H vs The Rock.

269. Carmelo Hayes vs Trick Williams (Cage Match, NXT 16.4.24)

Carmelo Hayes has finally moved from NXT to the WWE’s main roster as part of the Smackdown team. His final match in NXT was the blow-off to his feud with former best friend Trick Williams. The first bout of their feud at NXT Stand And Deliver 2024 was thoroughly disappointing (click here for my review). It felt more like an exhibition bout than a grudge match between two former best friends turned worst enemies. Williams won that bout, leading to this Cage match. The winner would receive a shot at Ilja Dragunov’s NXT Championship at NXT Spring Breakin 2024. Would this be any better than their first match?

268. Bryan Danielson vs Will Ospreay (AEW Dynasty 2024)

Another AEW PPV, another dream match! And this time, I don’t mean Kazuchika Okada vs PAC (although that was a bloody good bout: click here for my review). At AEW Dynasty 2024, Bryan Danielson competed against none other than ‘The Aerial Assassin,’ Will Ospreay! Four months into 2024, Ospreay already has five 5* and above matches as rated by Dave Meltzer. Danielson has two 5* matches. How many stars would Meltzer give this one? 7? 8? 10? Would he give up rating matches, due to the belief that he had witnessed the greatest wrestling match there could ever be?

267. Kazuchika Okada (c) vs PAC (AEW Continental Championship Match, AEW Dynasty 2024)

Another AEW PPV, another dream bout! Say what you want about AEW, but they sure have the roster to do dream match after dream match, don’t they? At AEW Dynasty, for the first time ever, we got to see two legends of the business face each other, two wrestlers who have travelled the world to tweak and refine their wrestling finesse. For the first time ever, Kazuchika Okada took on PAC! Oh, wait, was there another dream match at Dynasty? Possibly…but Okada and PAC opened the card as Okada put his AEW Continental (or International? No, I’m pretty sure it’s the Continental belt) on the line…

266. Johnny Gargano vs Tommaso Ciampa (Unsanctioned Match, NXT Takeover New Orleans 2018)

At NXT Stand And Deliver, Carmelo Hayes took on Trick Williams in the main event (click here for my review). Their story was the age-old tale of former best friends/tag team partners turning on each other and becoming bitter enemies. Booker Shawn Michaels may have been attempting to recapture the magic of the epitomal telling of this tale: Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano. Arguably the peak of HHH’s booking of NXT, this was long-term story-telling at it’s finest. Their lengthy feud came to a head an NXT Takeover New Orleans, in an Unsanctioned match. Unlike Hayes vs Williams, Gargano vs Ciampa lived up to the hype and delivered a grudge match for the ages.

265. The Undertaker vs AJ Styles (Boneyard Match, WWE WrestleMania 36 Saturday)

There’s been a lot of talk about “cinema” during Cody Rhodes’ story, hasn’t there? Every other comment about the ending to Roman Reigns vs Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania XL talks about it being “cinema,” or even mocking the people using the term “cinema.” “Cinema” encapsulates many things. For example, the Transformers films are technically “cinema”…but, in my eyes, that would be a derogatory term. Perhaps the people using the term “cinema” mean “cinematic,” and a quick Google defines that as “the visual qualities or aesthetics of a film or video.” We can argue all day about whether Cody Rhodes finishing his story qualifies as the latter, but I can think of one or two matches that certainly comes to mind when I think of “cinematic.” One of them involved a man who was part of Cody Rhodes’ story, The Undertaker (for reasons still yet to be explained). That match took place at WrestleMania 36, in against AJ Styles in a Boneyard Match. For me, it was an almost perfect goodbye to the in-ring career of ‘The Deadman.’