Comparing Crown Jewel To Backlash 2018
Up until now, if you'd ask most WWE fans which was the company's worst show of 2018, you'd get the word "Backlash" in reply. There's certainly a reason for such fervor. Though I actually believe that July's Extreme Rules event was even worse, May's Backlash event was infamous amongst fans even before the entire affair was over. The show was filled with numerous stinker matches, terrible promos, horribly booked finishes, and an infamous main event that actually saw fans leave the arena before it was over.
However, Crown Jewel has received a backlash similar to what Backlash itself received. Accounting for recency bias, it might now be an open question on what the consensus worst pay per view of 2018 will go down as.
Let's compare and contrast to see if Crown Jewel was indeed worse than Backlash.
Better: The Matches
Though there was nothing special about this card, Crown Jewel offered a better match catalogue on the whole than Backlash did, if only because Backlash offered stinker after stinker as the night went on. Aside from the Universal Championship match (which we'll get into later), there was nothing on the card that was actively atrocious, at least as far as ring action itself is concerned.
Aside from that one match, there was nothing spectacular on the card, but there was nothing horrible either.
With Backlash, we got numerous worst match of the year contenders on the same night, such as Charlotte vs. Carmella, Alexa Bliss vs. Nia Jax, and Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe. Nothing coming close to that infamous lineup ever happened at Crown Jewel.
In fact, up until the last three matches on the show, the card was an average WWE show, whereas Backlash revealed its true nature as soon as the opener came and went.