Some fans looked at the WWE Backlash France PLE card as a lackluster lineup, and the majority seemed to feel the same way when looking at the business metrics around the event.
On Saturday, the Premium Live Event that aired live from the LDLC Arena in Lyon-Decines, France, was headlined by Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Cody Rhodes vs. AJ Styles.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted interest from fans regarding the metrics that are tracked, including Google searches, traditional pay-per-view buys, and the Raw ratings following the show were down compared to other WWE B-level PLEs.
The WWE Raw ratings were down for the Backlash fallout episode as it drew 1.620 million viewers with a 0.53 rating in the key demo against strong NBA and NHL playoff competition. It drew the lowest PPV number in WWE history, although it should be noted the majority of fans watch it through Peacock in the US or WWE Network internationally.
In regards to Backlash, Meltzer said, “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 fans in France were louder than most WWE crowds, it appears that this show did not get fans as much interest as the usual B-show PLE’s.
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