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TAKING A DEEP LOOK INTO TOMORROW'S WWE BACKLASH PPV

Hi folks, and welcome to my preview of this Sunday’s Backlash PPV. I’ll ignore the glaring absence of a match with King Of The Ring winner William Regal, as well as a match fropm the “renewed” tag team division, and instead concentrate on the matches that have been announced.

WWE Women’s Champion Mickie James, Maria, Ashley Massaro, Michelle McCool, Kelly Kelly & Cherry vs Beth Phoenix, Melina, Jillian Hall, Layla El, Victoria & Natalya Neidhart

I really don’t have much to say about this one, but what really is there to say about any of these Diva matches? Other than Mickie, Beth Phoenix, Natalya, and sometimes Melina, none of these girls can wrestle, so we’re going to be spending some number of minutes watching dime-a-dozen glorified strippers struggling through a “wrestling” match. For people who complain about how terrible guys like Kevin Nash and Lex Luger are in the ring, I’d rather watch an Ironman Match between those two than anything with most of these girls. I really don’t care who wins, but I’m going to guess that Mickie’s team will for the pop.

Big Show vs Great Khali

Okay, this is where I suppose I’m supposed to insert some lame jokes about how this will put Flair vs Steamboat to shame, but I think this has the potential to be entertaining, if in a perverse way. Sure, Khali sucks and is largely immobile, but Big Show is and always has been underrated as a worker, and I think this will be something really different, because how many times has Show had the opportunity to work with somebody as big as he is? Hopefully Khali won't drag it down too much, and a good showing will probably be Show's ticket back to credibility after losing to Floyd Mayweather at Wrestlemania since Khali is heading back to India for a little vacation after this.

US Champion MVP vs Matt Hardy

This just goes to show how a slow build to a big payoff can still work even in today's world of monthly (or more) PPVs. Hardy finally has his shot at the US Title, and I don't see any way you don't put him over for the title here. That's not to say the feud can't continue because I'm sure that after an 11 month title reign, MVP won't just drop out of the title picture. The issue between these two will probably continue after this, but I think if you have Hardy flat out lose to MVP here, it'll kill the program dead and leave Matt Hardy with zero momentum. The only other out I see is if they get MVP disqualified or counted out to drag out the feud for a little longer and maybe have the final blowoff in a cage match or something. Actually, that's what I'm going with for what I'd like to see, so forget what I said about Matt going over here.

ECW Champion Kane vs Chavo Guerrero

After getting squashed by Kane in mere seconds at Wrestlemania, and just because of the fact that he's Chavo Guerrero, you wouldn't think that Chavo has any chance at all of beating Kane at Backlash. Chavo does have a bunch of people who could do a run-in for him, but I don't see him getting the title back here. I expect Kane to hold on to the title for a little while to come yet, and I don't see anyone in the picture right now who is ready to beat him for the title in any event.

Shawn Michaels vs Batista

To me, this is the real main event of the show. I also think this will be a really good big man/little man match, because even though Batista is known to have his motivation problems, he likes Michaels and will probably put in the effort since it's a headlining match. Michaels always works his ass off, especially when handed big, muscular guys like Batista. The build has been great for this, with Batista ostensibly being angry at Michaels for retiring his friend Ric Flair, but Michaels making accusations that Batista isn't really upset that Michaels retired Flair at all, but rather that Batista's mad that he didn't get the match with Flair instead. Batista's kind of doing the tweener thing even if he's not working full blown heel, but I wouldn't mind seeing him turn because I think he's needed that for that for a while now. Batista's a top guy but he isn't John Cena, he's not the guy the company is expecting to carry them for years to come, so a heel turn isn't totally out of the question. I think he's done all he can as a babyface for now, and I've found him more interesting during the build to this match than I have in a long time. He'd make a good heel because, in addition to the fact that he just looks like a real asshole, there have been fans who have been ready to boo him for a while, and I think brutalizing Michaels en route to victory here would be a good way to do it. I'm picking Batista to go over here, but I don't think this will be the last meeting between the two.

World Champion The Undertaker vs Edge

I don't know how much there really is to say about this one. They had a great match at Wrestlemania and I thought Edge would have been the perfect guy to break the streak if that's what they decided to do. But since the Undertaker won and is now the champion, I'm expecting him to get the lengthy reign he was supposed to get last year before the injury. Undertaker gets the win here to retain, though I expect Edge will get one more shot before the program wraps up.

WWE Champion Randy Orton vs JBL vs Triple H vs John Cena

Making this an elimination rules match made this a lot more interesting to me as it would have been as a regular fatal four way, simply because I like these rules in multi-man matches better than the usual “first fall wins it.” I see only two outcomes to this one, the first being Randy Orton sneaking away with the title for another month. I like this possibility better because he's become the heel champion that everybody hates and wants to see lose, yet he somehow walks away still champion time after time, so when he finally does lose the title, it'll be bigger than if he, say, dropped the belt on the throwaway PPV the month after Wrestlemania. Hypothetically speaking, of course. The other possibility I see is JBL somehow sneaking out with the belt. This is obviously the result that would least appeal to the online crowd since he's generally not regarded well and nobody really seems to know what JBL is doing in this match or how he deserves the title shot to begin with, but we've seen “why the hell is this guy getting a title shot?” matches where the underdog in question walked out with the title before, and I think with the politically connected JBL in there, it's a more likely possibility than if it were somebody with less clout. Besides, the guy came out of a two year retirement after claiming himself to be so injured that he'd never wrestle again, and do you really think he came back just to jerk the curtain with Chris Jericho and Finlay? Triple H is the guy people want to win the title, and John Cena's the guy who probably will get the title, but I don't see either of them getting the belt this weekend.

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So there you have it. When you look at the card as a whole, it seems less like a blowoff event (which PPVs should be to at least some degree) as it does “Chapter 2 of 3”, but it does have the potential to be a very good show from an in ring aspect. I expect Michaels-Batista and Edge-Undertaker to be good, and Show-Khali will be entertaining if not the textbook definition of “good.” In case you’re not watching the show live this Sunday night (or even if you are), come check out PWInsider’s live coverage of the show. Thanks for reading, and all feedback can be sent to stupwinsider@yahoo.com, and don't forget to chec k out my wrestling blog at stuwrestling.livejournal.com.