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Backlash 2018, the second WWE pay-per-view in just nine days, takes place in Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Eight matches have been announced for the event, including AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (WWE Championship), Seth Rollins vs. The Miz (Intercontinental Championship) and Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton (United States Championship).
Both women’s titles will also be on the line, with Nia Jax defending the Raw Women’s Championship against Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair challenging Carmella for the SmackDown Women’s Championship.
Elsewhere on the card, Raw Superstar Roman Reigns takes on SmackDown Live Superstar Samoa Joe, Braun Strowman and Bobby Lashley team up to take on Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, and Big Cass faces Daniel Bryan.
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In this article, let’s take a look at five possible shocks that could happen at the event.
#5 Samoa Joe defeats Roman Reigns clean
Samoa Joe made it clear on this week’s episode of SmackDown Live that he will set his sights on the WWE Championship following his Backlash match against Roman Reigns.
“The Destroyer” is one of the most convincing talkers on the mic in all of WWE right now, yet he regularly fails to back up his adamant promises of winning matches (his Universal Championship and Intercontinental Championship pursuits spring to mind).
If the former NXT champion is going to be involved in a WWE Championship storyline with AJ Styles and/or Shinsuke Nakamura after Backlash, then he simply has to fulfil his latest promise of defeating Reigns, ideally by winning clean, to be seen as a legitimate threat to the company's most prestigious title.
#4 Big Cass picks up the biggest win of his career
The Miz is not expected to win the Intercontinental Championship from Seth Rollins at Backlash, but there’s every chance he will feature again on the PPV to get involved in the match between Daniel Bryan and Big Cass.
It has already been confirmed that Bryan and Miz will face each other on live events soon, so it’s surely only a matter of time before the long-term rivals finally go head-to-head on WWE television.
If Miz vs. Rollins happens earlier in the night, then perhaps “The A-Lister” will show up later during Bryan vs. Cass to help the former “Realest Guy In The Room” defeat D-Bry in the biggest match of his career so far.
#3 Ronda Rousey targets the Raw Women’s Championship
Natalya (with Ronda Rousey) defeated Mickie James (with Alexa Bliss) on this week’s episode of Raw. Following the match, Nia Jax chased Alexa over the barricade and then teased a confrontation with Ronda inside the ring before raising her hand along with Natalya.
If WWE wants to continue teasing a blockbuster match between Ronda and Nia, perhaps the former UFC star can help fight off interference from Mickie during Nia vs. Alexa at Backlash, then she can make her intentions known following the match by pointing to the Raw Women’s Championship.
Ronda has repeatedly stated that she doesn’t want to cut corners and be handed opportunities that she hasn’t earned, so an immediate Raw Women’s title match is unlikely to happen, but perhaps she could be involved in a Money In The Bank ladder match at the MITB pay-per-view on 17 June.
#2 Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson betray AJ Styles
SmackDown Live GM Paige announced this week that, as a result of the count-out finish between AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura at the Greatest Royal Rumble, the WWE Championship rematch at Backlash will be a No Disqualification match.
When WWE adds a No DQ stipulation to a match, especially one that will almost certainly main-event a PPV, it usually only means one thing: interference.
The two most likely contenders to get involved in the match are Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, Styles’ former Bullet Club allies who recently teamed with “The Phenomenal One” following their switch to SmackDown Live in the Superstar Shake-Up.
However, instead of interfering to help their friend retain his title at Backlash, they could firmly cement their status as the biggest heel duo on SmackDown if they betrayed Styles and helped Nakamura win the WWE title for the first time in his career.
#1 Bobby Lashley turns heel on Braun Strowman
Bobby Lashley’s return to WWE hasn’t been met with as much fanfare as anticipated and he is way behind Braun Strowman, Seth Rollins and Finn Balor when it comes to the top babyfaces on Raw right now.
The two-time ECW champion has next-to-no tag team chemistry with Strowman, yet the two will join forces for the fourth week in a row when they take on Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn in a largely meaningless tag match at Backlash.
Considering it has been selected for the PPV ahead of multiple potential title matches (the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championships aren’t even on the card), one imagines WWE is planning something big for this match on Sunday.
Strowman and Lashley aren’t involved in major singles storylines at the moment, hence why they continue to team together, so perhaps the latter will turn against the Greatest Royal Rumble winner at Backlash to set up a monstrous encounter between the two men soon.
