WWE Backlash 2020 Results: Sheamus Beats Jeff Hardy To Continue Widely Criticized Feud

WWE Backlash 2020 marked a big win for Sheamus, whose victory over Jeff Hardy is the latest development in a storyline that has come under heavy criticism.

It was just a couple of weeks ago that WWE began utilizing Hardy’s real-life substance abuse issues to further his feud with “The Celtic Warrior,” a move that has been bashed by fans, analysts and even former WWE stars. CM Punk, who occasionally appears as an analyst on WWE Backstage on FOX, expressed concern over the direction of the feud between Sheamus and Hardy while appearing on the show (h/t Wrestling Inc).

Punk said, “I’m speaking from experience here because obviously I worked extensively with Jeff,” Punk said. “He — at that point — was maybe not in a great spot in his life, both mentally and physically. We all know about Jeff’s past and his problems. My thing with this segment and this story is that I believe somebody’s sobriety is very important and very fragile…I think cleaning your life up and being sober is something to be proud of and we can champion that in different ways. I think this is the wrong way to go about it, you just don’t put him in front of that moving car.”

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Fans have also labeled the storyline as “disgusting” while critics have slammed it as a way for WWE to “exploit” Hardy’s history on substance abuse. Although it isn’t clear if WWE’s decision to rush into Sheamus vs. Hardy at Backlash is a result of that—pun intended—backlash, the lightning quick nature of this rivalry suggests that WWE is second-guessing its effectiveness, even though WWE has left open the possibility that someone other than Sheamus is behind the framing of Hardy. On SmackDown two weeks ago, Hardy was adamant that he “did not slip,” and though WWE strongly hinted that Sheamus was the one behind the frame job, that wasn’t totally confirmed.

Now, we are left to wonder if WWE will ever give fans any real closure on this storyline.

Rewind to roughly a year ago when SmackDown’s main event picture was built heavily around a “whodunnit?” storyline involving an attack on Roman Reigns that was originally expected to build toward Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan. That feud never materialized, however, and The Wrap reported that the storyline involving Reigns’ attacker was such a disaster that a WWE source said, “The storyline was ‘botched so bad’ that ‘explaining to anyone what it was supposed to be wouldn’t make any sense at all.’” That storyline also resulted in major creative shakeups on the blue brand and across WWE’s creative team.

While the Hardy/Sheamus feud doesn’t seem to be getting quite as bad reviews as the Reigns angle despite another wildly controversial segment on SmackDown just two days ago, the rushed nature of it—combined with the controversy surrounding the focus of the feud—has made this yet another failed storyline on the blue brand, one that unnecessarily tried to blue the lines between reality and fiction for the sake of a midcard angle involving two former world champions who are already both future Hall of Famers.

In other words, there is no need to try to get babyface sympathy for Hardy, especially with no crowd in attendance, when he has already been firmly entrenched as one of WWE’s biggest fan favorites for much of his career. Sure, Hardy might be a little more popular now, but this is a 20-plus year veteran superstar we’re talking about here, not a rising babyface who would have benefited much more from being the focus of a marquee storyline.

This angle represents yet another storyline that was put together with a serious lack of long-term planning and no end goal that will benefit the company down the road, and if we learned anything from the Reigns’ attacker debacle, we may never truly get any closure on this feud.