Good to finally hear "good ol' JR" Jim Ross' voice back calling the action again as _Backlash_ opens. First match features "The Brood" - Edge, Christian, and Gangrel, who unceremoniously left The Undertaker's "Ministry of Darkness" - squaring off against "The Acolytes", consisting of Bradshaw, Farooq, and Midian. Following this was another "hardcore" match (for the title) between "Hardcore Holly" and "Al Snow & Head". While it _was_ a "hardcore match" (meaning anything goes, no DQ, no countout, pinfalls count ANYWHERE) it wasn't all that exciting because, well, frankly because everything had already been done before. They took it out of the building, into the parking lot, crashed into vehicles, etc etc and ultimately wound up back in the ring where it ended. Basically a _"Been there, Done that"_ sort of match. Next up, a match for the Intercontinental Title between newly-crowned champ, "The Godfather" squaring off against former IC champion, "Golddust". The Golddust character I'm learning to tolerate (at least a little bit) but that Blue Meanie is just obnoxious and stupid. I have to agree with Jim Ross in that this was _"one of the most unique Intercontinental Championshp matches we've ever seen"_ . Next up, a tagteam matchup between "The New Age Outlaws" versus Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart. They are, of course, "accompanied by Debra", wearing very little...and we have to listen to Jerry Lawler blather like a pubescent little boy seeing a girl in a bikini for the first time. I know this is the "Attitude Era" - and that segues into the "Rated R - era" but seriously, who needs all the cleavage and T&A just to enjoy "professional rasslin'"? There's a lot I _don't_ miss about the 80's era but I definitely don't need all the "mature-audiences-only" puke to enjoy sports entertainment. And, as you would expect - harking back to the days of Jim Crockett Promotions and the Rock 'n' Roll Express - there's a lot of double-teaming and cheating involved in the finish. Now we have the soap opera going on with the McMahons...and seriously, who needs THAT? Moving on, we come to a "boilerroom match" between Mick Foley's "Mankind" character vs "The Big Show" (winner is declared only when one person can walk out of the boilerroom). This was a match that could easily have been ignored; while I admire Mick Foley's heart and his dedication to his sport, Paul Wight just can't put on a very good show and the entire match looks very staged and isn't interesting AT ALL. Probably the most interesting thing about this whole match was when Foley, unfortunately, accidentally severely lacerated his own hand when bashing Big Show over the head with a window. Glass shattered (of course) and Foley wound up shredding his own hand. Now we have a match that, for all rights and reasons, I should just "fast-forward" through: a nothing, no-name match between Sean Waltman vs Paul Levesque. I care about NEITHER of them (although I do give Levesque props for at least eliciting some emotion in his 'heel' character). "Triple H" is, of course, accompanied to the match by the Amazonian bull-dyke Joan Laurer "Chyna" and lord knows she seriously needs to put some clothes on and cover that nasty. That is just disgusting. If this were a real "fight"....well, I mean, if he were in a real fight, Waltman would run like a scared rabbit. He's a nothing who obviously worked the "back office" with Pat Patterson to earn a spot in the WWF. Of course, Laurer has to get her "nut shot" in so she can claim her 15 seconds of fame, and then the lights go out. Best line of the match, though, goes to Jim Ross: _"Kane just drilled Chyna."_ LOL You can imagine how this one ends...not that anyone cares. Moving on, please... Up next: a match between "The Undertaker" vs Ken Shamrock. They're doing their best to turn Mark Calaway into a "darker" persona with his new look and the whole "Ministry of Darkness" thing...including some weird speaking-in-tongues sort of chant with his new "entrance". Not sure what that's about but IMO it hasn't done anything to make The Undertaker any more interesting than he already was. The match was bad enough that the chants of _"Booooooorring"_ actually started up at numerous times through the match. And for good reason. This has to be one of the worst matches I've seen the Undertaker put up. Finally we come to the main event: the match for the heavyweight championship between "The Rock" (Dwayne Johnson) vs "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. The caveat to this one, however, is that Shane McMahon is the "special guest referee" and has stipulated that if Austin _"lays a hand on the ref or even looks at me wrong"_ Austin will be disqualified and forfeit the title. The match is (of course) all over the place, rarely staying inside the ring and really (IMO) about the only drawback to this match was Jerry Lawler's openly rooting for The Rock and against Steve Austin. I've mentioned this before, but it bears observing all over again: When Jesse Ventura was calling the ring action along with Gorilla Monsoon, he had the perfect finesse of being "pro-heel" and "anti-face" without being obnoxious about it. You knew from his history as a wrestling "heel" that Ventura was going to "cheer" when the bad guy had something going, and he would find fault any time the fan favorite (or "babyface") was winning. But he did it so subtly, so under-the-radar that you couldn't help but laugh. Every single one of his successors - beginning with Bobby Heenan - have, unfortunately, lacked that finesse and by this point, Jerry Lawler is just openly cheering for his favorite - in this case, the "heel" - to win and for Austin to get disqualified, pinned, or otherwise. It just...it didn't "ruin" the match but it detracted from it and made Lawler just seem all the more like a petulant whiny little crybaby. The match, however, was amazing, hugely entertaining, and full of action and surprises. The ending was even more surprising than I had expected but then they pushed the limit by trying to turn the WWF into a 'made-for-TV' horror movie. I get that this is "sports entertainment" and I get that the WWF "writes stories" but sometimes I wish they wouldn't try so hard to turn the storylines into their own small-screen version of a movie. It rarely works, and it didn't this time. It threw a slight tarnish on what had been a great final match of the evening...but even with that, this was a halfway decent card, and certainly the "main event" is worth seeing.