Dave Meltzer Analyzes Performance Of WWE Backlash 2024

WWE Backlash France was a memorable night on multiple levels for WWE. In the ring, Cody Rhodes retained his Undisputed WWE Championship against AJ Styles, former NJPW star Tanga Loa became the newest member of The Bloodline, and the team of Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair became the WWE Women's Tag Team Champions. Outside the ring, it was announced that the show had broken the record for largest arena gate in WWE history, and the crowd was so loud that people started getting warnings on their smart devices. That said, there's at least one metric by which the PLE didn't perform quite as well — on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer mentioned that Backlash France set a dismal pay-per-view record.

"For the pay-per-view, the Google searches were the lowest of any WWE pay-per-view that I've ever seen," Meltzer said. "The pay-per-view number was ,I believe — it's early, so the first week number, it's going to grow, but as far as a first week number, it was like 3,700."

Meltzer noted that financially, a WWE pay-per-view number means very little, considering most American fans watch the shows on Peacock. However, he also said there's one thing that the pay-per-view number can reveal: the level of interest in that particular event.

"This one was down 39% from the same period leading into the Chamber show," he said. "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."

Meltzer mentioned that under the old model WWE used to go by, Backlash France would have been considered a flop, but given the way fans consume content in the modern era, the old standards for judging a wrestling show's success or failure no longer apply.

Please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.