combat

Bad Bunny shines at WWE Backlash

The Sporting Tribune's Adrian Hernandez was in Puerto Rico to chronicle Bad Bunny's return to headline a major WWE event.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico —  Let me tell you a story.

A kid from Puerto Rico grows up to be the biggest musical artist in the world and decides to pursue his true love which is pro wrestling and tells the WWE, “Hey, I’ll work with y’all if you bring a premier event to my home island and let me wrestle in it and bring back my childhood heroes.”

Crazy, right? Well, Bad Bunny just did that and killed it.

If you want to know how the arena felt on Saturday night just peep the reaction to Carlito’s return from the guy behind me. He had an out of body experience and I don’t blame him one damn bit.

Here’s more from an unforgettable week where I got to come home to the island of my family and chronicle one of our favorite sons coming home and making us all proud.

On Monday the WWE announced that Backlash was the company’s highest-grossing and most-viewed Backlash in company history. 

Viewership of Backlash saw a 28 percent increase versus the record set in 2022. The event was also the largest gate ever for any WWE event held in Puerto Rico and the largest gate in the history of Backlash. 

More than 34,800 fans descended on San Juan, Puerto Rico, for back-to-back sellout nights of SmackDown (16,896 attendees) and Backlash (17,944 attendees). It also marked the most social Backlash of all-time, led by over 40 million views of the San Juan Street Fight featuring Bad Bunny vs. Damian Priest. The hashtag #WWEBacklash, accompanied by a custom Bad Bunny emoji, trended No. 1 across the entire evening of sports.