WWE Monday Night Raw airs live from the historic Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC tonight and we’re just six days away from wrestling Kickback pay-per-view in Providence, Rhode Island.
Whether it’s an extremely important episode or a completely throwaway show that will be forgotten in two weeks, there are always questions surrounding every edition of Monday Night Raw. I’m going to ask some related to tonight’s episode.
Why was the tag team title unification match canceled at the last minute?
For weeks, we’ve seemingly been prepping for a title unification matchup between Smackdown Tag Team Champions The Usos and Raw Tag Team Champions RK-Bro at Wrestlemania Backlash and that has seemingly gone out the window. After last week’s episode of Friday Night Smackdown, the plans were changed, as we will now have a full Bloodline six-man tag team match against RK-Bro and Drew McIntyre.
So why the sudden change?
Perhaps the company balked at the idea of unifying the tag belts at the last minute and decided not to do the match? Or maybe after weeks of building, they realized they needed to unify WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns on the card to draw more eyes. After Shinsuke Nakamura’s proposed show was scrapped after only a week, it looked like “Tribal Chief” would pull this pay-per-view.
Or maybe this whole ordeal was just a vehicle to get us into the impending Reigns vs. McIntyre title match? Either way, it’s a jarring shift and we’ll see them switch gears a few days before the big show in Providence.
How does Asuka’s return affect Raw Women’s title image?
We got Becky Lynch’s return to Raw last week and, unsurprisingly, she declared her intentions to win back her Raw Women’s Championship from Bianca Belair. However, what was not expected was the return of former champion Asuka, who said that she would stop Lynch.
This makes for an interesting summer within the Raw women’s division with Belair, Lynch and Asuka as the mainstays standing at the top of the division. While possible, I wouldn’t expect to see a rushed Lynch-Asuka match for this Sunday’s pay-per-view. However, with Hell in a Cell and Money in the Bank fast approaching, there are several ways they could go with these three in the coming months. It all starts tonight.
What other matches will take place for Wrestlemania Backlash?
Sunday’s schedule has the makings of a standard Tier B post-Wrestlemania pay-per-view with just a few matches with a lot on the line. We’ll get the anticipated Wrestlemania rematch between Seth Rollins and Cody Rhodes, as well as the Edge vs. AJ Styles and Bobby Lashley vs. Omos.
Other than that, there are a few possible pairings that could be added to the card. Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan could quickly end their feud after the former turned on the latter two weeks ago. We could also have United States Champion Austin Theory defending his title against Ali, who made his official return last week. We’ll see how this turns out.
Reference-dknation.draftkings.com