The first brand exclusive pay-per-view aired this past Sunday on the WWE Network. Exclusive to Smackdown, Backlash has now come and gone and people want to know just how it went down. My colleague and good friend, Jacob Van Divner, previewed the highly anticipated event last week and now I’m here to tell you everything that happened at Backlash on Sunday.

The main card kicked off with the Six Pack Challenge elimination match for the newly created Smackdown Women’s Championship. This match featured six of the division’s best talents and found Becky Lynch victorious in the end. The match was wrestled in a solid manor from all six women, so I’m going to give credit where it is due and say this was a decent to good contest. The subplot of Carmella versus Nikki Bella was interesting and affected the ending of the match, but it involves two of the division’s lesser in-ring talents. Hopefully it helps build Carmella as a solid heel for the division. The main focus of this match was Becky Lynch finally being rewarded with a championship reign after being one of the best workers in the industry. It was well deserved indeed.

Later in the night, The Miz defended his Intercontinental Championship against the challenging Dolph Ziggler. This match was definitely solid, and it was mainly used to keep Miz strong by knocking down a big name to capitalize on his promo he cut a couple of weeks back. The wrestling itself was also solid, so I don’t think anyone was complaining. It was definitely a smart decision by creative to keep the title on the purest and possibly the best heel in the company, The Miz.

The crowning of the first ever Smackdown Tag Team Champions was also a main focus for the night. Earlier in the show, The Usos defeated The Hype Bros via submission to move on to face the team of Heath Slater and Rhyno for the belts. Overall, the title match was average. The Usos working as bad guys for the first time in years was a good thing to watch and the odd, but effective pairing of Slater and Rhyno seemed to once again work well together. I believe that once again the correct decision was made by giving the titles to Rhyno and Heath for two reasons. One, this gimmick is very over with the fans right now and it was the perfect time to put them at the pinnacle of the tag team division. And two, it leaves an element of unpredictability in the division. It would have been obvious for the Usos to win and then go straight into a feud with American Alpha, who they had put out of commision, but now, us as fans don’t know where things are headed.

And now, the co-main event. Randy Orton vs Bray Wyatt. Two of the biggest names in wrestling… And it never happened. It was shown that earlier in the night that Bray Wyatt had violently attacked Randy Orton’s ankle which made him unable to compete. This made Wyatt look like a strong and dominant force. Orton was previously injured out of character and wasn’t able to compete, so then… this debacle happened. Kane was the replacement for Randy Orton and the match was changed to No Holds Barred. It was a sluggish, run of the mill match that was kind of just filler. And plus, the wrong man won. A limping Randy Orton came to the ring near the end of the contest and hit Wyatt with an RKO, allowing Kane to capitalize and win. Ugh. Why couldn’t they have just given Bray the win and then have Randy come out and do his thing? Bray needs it if they really want to make him seem like a legitimate threat. Why are they not treating one of the better talents in the industry right by making him lose to a washed up fifty year old? These are questions that us wrestling fans will never know.

The main event of the evening pitted Smackdown’s hottest stars against each other for the WWE Championship. AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose absolutely stole the show, tore the house down, and everything in between. This is what the main event of every show should look like. Back and forth, hotly contested, and the best part was, no one knew who would come out victorious in the end. The wrestling was just great from both men, and once again, the proper decision was made. AJ Styles is the new WWE Champion and it couldn’t feel more right. He is the most over heel, or perhaps act, in pro wrestling today, and it was the right thing to put the illustrious strap on the already decorated competitor, giving him one more title to add to his list of accomplishments.

In my opinion, Backlash was a good, not great, but a good pay-per-view. For the most part, the matches went in the correct direction. However, some of the matches just seemed a bit slow for my liking. However, I’m not one to nitpick, so I’ll just say it was a solid way to start off the number of upcoming brand exclusive pay-per-views and also made Smackdown look pretty good. Overall, I would have to give this show a solid B.