The 2009 Backlash was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brand divisions. It was the 11th annual Backlash and took place on April 26, 2009, at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island. The concept of the event was based around the backlash from WrestleMania 25.
The card comprised seven matches, as well as one dark match that occurred before the live broadcast. The main matches saw SmackDown's Edge defeat Raw's John Cena in a Last Man Standing match to win the World Heavyweight Championship, transferring the title to SmackDown, and Randy Orton won Raw's WWE Championship in a six-man tag team match pitting defending champion Triple H, Batista, and Shane McMahon against The Legacy (Orton, Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase); Orton pinned Triple H to win the title. The card also included Jeff Hardy defeating Matt Hardy in an "I Quit" match and Christian winning the ECW Championship by defeating Jack Swagger.
The event received 182,000 pay-per-view buys, down on the previous event's figure of 200,000 buys. This was the second Backlash held at the Dunkin' Donuts Center, after the 1999 event when it was known as the Providence Civic Center. This would also be the final Backlash held until 2016, as in 2010, Extreme Rules was moved up into the April/May slot, which also made it the final Backlash to broadcast exclusively via traditional PPV outlets due to the launch of the WWE Network streaming service in February 2014. Although the event was reinstated in 2016, it was held in September that year, thus the 2009 event was the final Backlash to carry the post-WrestleMania theme until the 2021 event.
This was the final Backlash to feature ECW and the ECW Championship, as the brand was dissolved in February 2010, deactivating the championship along with it, and it was subsequently the final Backlash held before the end of the first brand extension in August 2011. This in turn made it the final Backlash to feature multiple brands until 2018, as the brand split was reintroduced in July 2016, which brought back brand-exclusive PPVs; both the 2016 and 2017 events were held exclusively for SmackDown before brand-exclusive PPVs were again discontinued following WrestleMania 34 in 2018. This would in turn be the final Backlash to feature the previous versions of the World Tag Team Championship, WWE Women's Championship, and World Heavyweight Championship, which were retired in August 2010, September 2010, and December 2013, respectively.
Production Background
Backlash is a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event that was established by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 1999. The concept is based around the backlash from WWE's flagship event, WrestleMania. The 11th event featured the backlash from WrestleMania 25 and was scheduled to take place on April 26, 2009, at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island. It featured wrestlers from the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brand divisions. This was the second Backlash held at this venue, after the 1999 event when it was known as the Providence Civic Center.
Storylines The event included matches that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Raw, SmackDown, and ECW.
The main rivalry heading into Backlash pitted Triple H against Randy Orton over the WWE Championship. The feud had started on the February 16 episode of Raw, when Orton punted Triple H's brother-in-law, Shane McMahon and then performed the RKO on his wife Stephanie McMahon. As a result, Triple H convinced Orton to challenge him for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 25. At WrestleMania on April 5, 2009, Triple H defeated Orton to retain the WWE Championship. The following night on Raw, WWE chairman Vince McMahon announced that a six-man tag team match would take place at Backlash between Triple H, Shane McMahon, and himself against The Legacy (Orton, Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase) which was later turned into a WWE Championship match by new general manager of Raw, Vickie Guerrero. That same night, Shane and Triple H were attacked by The Legacy, but were saved by a returning Batista. Vince announced that Batista would be taking his place at Backlash. On the following week's episode of Raw, after returning to WWE the week before, Batista arrived on the night of the WWE Draft lottery. Batista made clear his desire to face Orton on Raw and take revenge for the punt that kept him from the ring for four months. He was later joined in the ring by both Shane McMahon and WWE Champion Triple H, who both wanted to get their hands on Orton for his attacks on Stephanie McMahon and the WWE Chairman himself, Mr. McMahon. As the three argued over who would get first dibs on Orton, they were interrupted by Vickie Guerrero, who announced that only one of them would get the opportunity to face Orton before Backlash, and that they would have to earn it. Guerrero then placed Triple H, Batista and Shane McMahon in a three-on-two handicap match against The Legacy for later in the night. Whichever one of them would score the pinfall on either Rhodes or DiBiase will have earned themselves a match against Orton on the next Raw, but if The Legacy prevailed, then none of the three would be able to get their hands on him. Triple H pinned DiBiase to win the match. On the last episode of Raw, Orton defeated Triple H in a No Disqualification match despite their teammates interfering during the match. Then a few days later on SmackDown, Batista and Shane McMahon defeated DiBiase and Rhodes in a tag team match.
Another rivalry heading into Backlash was an interpromotional feud between Raw's John Cena and SmackDown's Edge over the World Heavyweight Championship. At No Way Out on February 15, 2009, Edge attacked Kofi Kingston, who was due to compete in Raw's Elimination Chamber match for Cena's World Heavyweight Championship. As a result, Edge took his spot in the match and subsequently won the World Heavyweight Championship by last eliminating Rey Mysterio, transferring the title to SmackDown. At WrestleMania 25, Cena defeated the defending champion Edge and Big Show in a triple threat match to win back the title and transfer it back to Raw. On the April 6 episode of Raw, Vickie Guerrero announced that Cena would defend his World Heavyweight Championship against Edge in a Last Man Standing match at Backlash.
Interim General manager Tiffany announced on the April 7 episode of ECW that Jack Swagger would defend his ECW Championship against the winner of the "elimination chase", which commenced on that night and involved Christian, Tommy Dreamer, Finlay, and Mark Henry; the participants in the chase would have a four-way that night. Henry got pinned the same night and was eliminated from contention. The remaining three wrestlers competed in a triple threat match on the April 14 episode of ECW on Sci Fi with the person being pinned or forced to submit being eliminated from contention; Dreamer was pinned in this contest, leading to a singles match between Finlay and Christian on the April 16 episode of WWE Superstars, which saw Christian get the victory, thus allowing him to face Swagger for the title at Backlash.
After Matt Hardy betrayed his brother, Jeff, at the Royal Rumble — costing the latter the WWE Championship against Edge — the two embarked on a feud that saw Jeff initially reluctant to fight his brother; after much goading, they had a match at WrestleMania 25, which saw Matt win; however, with Jeff not fully incapacitated after Matt had vowed to "erase Jeff from WWE", a stretcher match took place between the two, which Matt also won. As a result of their feud, the SmackDown general manager, Theodore Long, announced an "I Quit" match between the two at Backlash.
After the release of the film, The Wrestler, and the film's actor Mickey Rourke backing out of a challenge that he had earlier issued to Chris Jericho to a match at WrestleMania 25, Jericho started targeting WWE's legends and Hall of Famers by insulting and beating them over many weeks on Raw. (These legends included the likes of Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka, and Ricky Steamboat.) At WrestleMania 25, Jericho defeated Piper, Snuka and Steamboat in a handicap elimination match. After winning, Jericho called Rourke out in the ring. During the confrontation between the two, Rourke knocked Jericho down with a punch. Then, on the April 20 episode of Raw, it was announced that Jericho would face Ricky Steamboat in a singles match at Backlash.
Event +Other on-screen personnelRole:Name:English commentatorsMichael ColeJim RossJerry LawlerSpanish commentatorsCarlos CabreraHugo SavinovichRing announcersLilian GarciaJustin RobertsRefereesMike ChiodaJohn ConeCharles Robinson Before the event aired live on pay-per-view, Kofi Kingston defeated Dolph Ziggler in a dark match.
Preliminary matches The actual pay-per-view began with Jack Swagger defending the ECW Championship against Christian. Swagger controlled the match with takedowns, suplexes and slams. After both men removed the padding on a turnbuckle, Christian avoided Swagger, causing Swagger to collide with the exposed turnbuckle. Christian then executed a Killswitch to win the ECW Championship.
The following contest involved Chris Jericho and Ricky Steamboat — the latter competing in his first singles match since 1994. As Steamboat attempted a diving crossbody, Jericho countered with a Codebreaker and forced Steamboat to submit to the Walls of Jericho for the win. Following the match, Steamboat was given a standing ovation from the crowd in attendance.
CM Punk wrestled Kane next, with Punk mainly attacking Kane's arm with kicks and arm bars to prevent him from performing the chokeslam. After Punk tried to incapacitate his opponent, Kane managed to execute a leg-trap chokeslam for the win.
Next was the "I Quit" match pitting Matt Hardy against Jeff Hardy. The two attacked each other with a number of heavy shots and submission holds during the match. After Jeff placed Matt on a table, he tied him to the table and set up a ladder in the corner of the ring. When the referee asked Matt if he wanted to quit, he took the opportunity to talk down Jeff, bringing up the case of what his father and late mother would think of this before quitting, meaning Jeff won the match. After the match, Jeff vaulted over the ladder and performed a leg drop through the table on Matt.
Santina Marella (really Santino Marella in drag posing as his fictitious twin sister) came down to the ring after the match, and proclaimed her prowess before The Great Khali entered in the hopes of kissing Marella, only to have Marella refuse, claiming to love another man, SmackDown commentator, Jim Ross, who sat at ringside with Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole. Beth Phoenix came to the ring and challenged Marella for her title of Miss WrestleMania. Before the match started, Khali attacked Phoenix with a brain chop, leading to Marella pinning Phoenix to retain her title.
Main event matches