To counteract the rundown of the superstars missing from the Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live rosters for Backlash 2018, let’s talk about the lucky few who will be booked to not only perform, but likely steal the show in some fashion.
This could be in a scripted or non-kayfabe sense when factoring in everything from pure wins and losses to how much emphasis someone is given, to their momentum carrying over after the event, match performance quality and pretty much everything that could get people to talk about these particular men and women more than anybody else.
When looking at the card currently scheduled for the pay-per-view, this is my shortlist for the superstars who will stand out at Backlash 2018.
Shinsuke Nakamura
At this point, Nakamura has to win the WWE Championship, because if he fails three times in a row, why would anybody care to see a fourth match between these two?
I’m not 100% convinced that he will win it, as Samoa Joe can pick up where Nakamura left off and become the next person to challenge AJ Styles, and most likely dethrone him, but the heel turn and the new music has me leaning much more toward Nakamura than to just keep things the same with Styles.
In particular, the No Disqualification stipulation helps present scenarios where Nakamura can low-blow Styles and win by that method, taking his first championship on the main roster and becoming an official world champion in WWE.
Big Cass
Part of me thinks the main way to keep this feud going is for Daniel Bryan to get the win, upsetting Big Cass even more so that he can beat him down after the match and then continue to bitch and complain on the following episode of SmackDown that it was a fluke and that he wants another fight.
However, Bryan is so popular that I wouldn’t be surprised at all if WWE opts to, instead, go in the direction where Bryan comes up short (no pun intended) and the goal is to get people to boo Cass’s victory and wish to see Bryan get another match to prove himself against the giant.
In the end, I believe the major point to take away from all this is more that WWE is attempting to get Cass over by his association with Bryan more so than Bryan being given a Goliath to slay, so while the leader of the Yes Movement will be everyone’s favorite, he won’t be the driving force of the purpose of this feud.
Carmella
Carmella just won the title from Charlotte Flair after WrestleMania and even though there’s certainly a chance The Queen simply wins it back, the addition of The IIconics to the match at any point can create enough of a distraction to excuse Carmella retaining.
When in doubt, always bet more on the champion retaining than a new title-holder being crowned, especially if it’s pretty early on in their title reign.
Granted, WWE has had flip-flop booking lately and this could be the next in the list, but I’m more of the opinion that Asuka will take the title from Carmella, not Charlotte.
Roman Reigns
I hate always having to talk badly about the situations Roman Reigns is in, because I do like him as a performer much more than what I’m able to really enjoy, but WWE just continually puts him in scenarios that I can’t be excited about.
My guess is this will go down with Reigns fighting a hard-fought match, where he’ll end up triumphant over Samoa Joe and we’ll all be told that we should be super happy about it and really pumped to see The Big Dog get back on track with a win, after having lost twice to Brock Lesnar.
However, my reaction is going to be just annoyance that Joe suffered a loss for no reason other than to give someone a win who doesn’t need it, because if Reigns needed it, that’s WWE’s fault for booking him the way they’ve done this past year. That could have all been avoided if there wasn’t a stubborn refusal to change the plan from Lesnar vs. Reigns.
Following this win over Joe, we’ll be told by the commentary team how this was a brutal match and it’s amazing that Reigns conquered and that we should celebrate, and WWE will edit the crowd reaction to be cheers in clips of this, but he’ll still be booed when cutting a promo about his victory on Raw.
Those are my picks, but who do you think will end up being the primary focal points? Drop your predictions in the comments below!
