The WWE Backlash France PLE card was viewed as having a mediocre lineup by some fans, and based on the event’s business metrics, most fans appeared to share this opinion.
On Saturday, the Premium Live Event, which aired live from the LDLC Arena in Lyon-Decines, France, featured Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Cody Rhodes vs. AJ Styles.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted fan interest in the metrics tracked, such as Google searches, traditional pay-per-view purchases, and Raw ratings following the show, which were lower than other WWE B-level PLEs.
The WWE Raw ratings were down for the Backlash fallout episode, which drew 1.620 million viewers and received a 0.53 rating in the key demo despite strong NBA and NHL playoff competition. It drew the fewest PPVs in WWE history, though it should be noted that the majority of fans watched it on Peacock in the United States or WWE Network internationally.
Meltzer stated the following about Backlash:
“So for the pay-per-view, the Google searches were the lowest of any WWE pay-per-view that I’ve ever seen, was 100,000. The first-week number, it’s going to grow. But as far as the first week’s number was concerned, it was 3,700, which is for a WWE pay-per-view. It’s like, whatever, financially, a WWE pay-per-view number doesn’t mean anything. Because most of the people by you know, most people are going to be watching on Peacock. But the variation, you know, is like when there’s a show with a lot, but the one thing that pay-per-view can tell you is how much interest there is. This one was down 39% from the same period leading into the Chamber show, which was the first Perth, but it was the lowest in history for a WWE show as far as pay-per-view buys. And it looks to be by a significant margin. So I mean, the basic gist is that if this was old school, what we would say is this pay-per-view flopped. Of course, you can’t flop, you can’t flop in UFC, just like their pay-per-view, which also did not do well. You can’t flop; it’s impossible, but interesting level-wise as far as garnering interest, it wasn’t there the people. Whatever it was, you know, didn’t hook the people. That’s your answer. And the Raw number usually gets a bump after the pay-per-view. And this did not.”
The show aired on Saturday afternoon, hours before the Canelo Alvarez fight and UFC 301. While the crowd in France was louder than most WWE crowds, it appears that this show did not pique fans’ interest as much as typical B-show PLEs.
