Backlash (2017)

The 2017 Backlash was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE, held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's main roster brand, SmackDown. It was the 13th Backlash and took place on May 21, 2017, at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. Eight matches were contested at the event, including one on the Kickoff pre-show. In the main event, Jinder Mahal defeated Randy Orton to win his first WWE Championship, becoming the first wrestler of Indian descent to win the title. In other prominent matches, Kevin Owens retained the United States Championship against AJ Styles, and The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) defeated Breezango (Fandango and Tyler Breeze) to retain the SmackDown Tag Team Championship. The event was also notable for the televised main roster in-ring debut of Shinsuke Nakamura, who defeated Dolph Ziggler in the opening bout. This was the second Backlash held at the Allstate Arena, after the 2001 event, and it returned Backlash to the springtime, after the 2016 event was held in September. This was also the final brand-exclusive Backlash, as although the 2018 event was originally planned to be Raw-exclusive, brand-exclusive PPV and livestreaming events for the main roster were discontinued following WrestleMania 34 in April that year.