What’s the story?
The WWE has officially added two more matches to the card for upcoming SmackDown Live pay-per-view Backlash. Shinsuke Nakamura will make his in-ring debut against Dolph Ziggler while The Usos will defend the SmackDown Tag Team Championships against Breezango.
In case you didn’t know...
Nakamura made his main roster debut during the Superstar Shake-up and revealed that he had been drafted to SmackDown Live. Though Nakamura has never wrestled on the WWE main roster’s live television, he has competed against Ziggler in multiple dark matches.
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A few weeks ago, SmackDown had a Beat the Clock Challenge for the tag team division which was eventually won by Tyler Breeze and Fandango.
The heart of the matter
With these two matches added to the card, this brings the total number of matches official for Backlash up to four. The following is the list of matches that the WWE have announced officially for the show in two weeks:
Randy Orton (c) vs. Jinder Mahal – WWE Championship
Kevin Owens (c) vs. AJ Styles – United States Championship
The Usos (c) vs. Breezango – SmackDown Tag Team Championships
Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Dolph Ziggler
Charlotte, Becky Lynch, and Naomi vs. Carmella, Natalya, and Tamina
What’s next?
The WWE have one more week to make any updates to the Backlash card, so expect to see a few more matches added to the show to fill time. Other wrestlers like Mojo Rawley, Baron Corbin, Sami Zayn, and teams like American Alpha and The Colóns could be added to the show to prevent the card from feeling empty.
Author’s take
It’s good to see the WWE lock more of these matches in as they approach their upcoming pay-per-view. The last SmackDown exclusive pay-per-view was the Elimination Chamber and that show was viewed as one of the better brand exclusive pay-per-views in recent memory.
Fast forward a few months and SmackDown has fewer stars to work with, and a main event most fans aren’t sold on. It will be interesting to see how the SmackDown creative team attempts to match the creativity and quality fans have come to expect out of the Blue Brand.
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