WWE partnered with Netflix’s Army of the Dead for last night’s WrestleMania Backlash pay-per-view. It made perfect sense as the Zack Snyder movie stars former WWE Champion Batista, and the opening of the show featured him narrating over the introduction and clips from the movie. Had that been the film’s only involvement in the event, it’s unlikely anyone would have said anymore. However, when it was revealed that the lumberjacks in the match between The Miz and Damian Priest, fans began to share their outrage on social media.
Thankfully, the match itself was only seven minutes in length, but being built around the zombies at ringside, it is destined for a future WrestleCrap induction. It featured The Miz trying to hide under the ring from the zombies, and John Morrison, who was accompanying The Miz, would dive onto the horde before he was dragged off the barricade. Priest would get the win, and then the zombies invaded the ring to apparently eat The Miz.
By now, fans on social media were either mocking the match or annoyed that WWE would put something like that on pay-per-view, with many choosing to tag Batista in their tweets. This resulted in Batista taking the time to respond to one fan and distancing himself from the debacle.
It isn’t 100% confirmed who played the zombies, as obviously the makeup (which was very well done) disguised them. It’s believed they were WWE signed wrestlers Joe Gacy, Daniel Vidot, Cal Bloom, Jiro Kuroshio, and Asher Hale. All of whom will probably hope this gets forgotten by fans promptly.
This wasn’t the first time WWE has used zombies on their shows. During the debut of ECW on Sci-Fi, independent wrestler Tim Arson would come out dressed as a zombie, making fun of the content that typically aired on the network. He would end up taking several brutal Singapore cane shots from The Sandman. Additionally, at last year’s Halloween Havoc NXT special, several zombies would be involved in a Haunted House of Terror cinematic match between Dexter Lumis and Cameron Grimes. While they were also silly, at least their inclusion played into the nature of the match and the event.
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