It's one thing to predict the winners and losers at Backlash 2017, but how about taking a guess at the match order on that card?
WWE has announced 7 different matches for the main card of Backlash 2017, not counting the kickoff match featuring Tye Dillinger versus Aiden English.
Here is my subjective view of how important each of these 7 segments rank on the Backlash 2017 card, ordered from most important to least important.
- Randy Orton vs. Jinder Mahal
- Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Dolph Ziggler
- Kevin Owens vs. AJ Styles
- Naomi, Becky, Charlotte vs. Natalya, Tamina, Carmella
- The Usos vs. Breezango
- Sami Zayn vs. Baron Corbin
- Luke Harper vs. Erick Rowan
It is important to come up with a list like this to get an idea of which matches are going to be placed in the key spots on the card or take up the most time, and which matches might end up in the cool-down spots or be given the least amount of time.
Main event
Jinder Mahal’s match for the WWE Championship seems like the clear choice for the main event match. Mahal’s sudden change from jobber to a championship contender is hard to take seriously and should make him vulnerable to being placed outside of the main event.
Owens and Styles would be the obvious top guys who can deliver in that spot, but their underwhelming story doesn’t feel important enough for it.
Therefore I would give Nakamura the second best chance to main event this show, if only to make his debut match an even bigger deal. But it doesn’t seem likely. So my best guess is that Jinder Mahal has a comfortable hold on the main event match at Backlash.
Opening match
The opening match of the night is usually one of the mid-level attractions with good work rate that doesn’t require a dedicated video package ahead of time to hype it up.
As I have already explained, KO’s match with AJ doesn’t feel very well developed, and part of the reason for that is Owens splitting his time dealing with Jericho for a while. I would normally say that a match between AJ and KO is too important for the opening slot of a PPV, but in this case, I am strongly considering it. They can certainly bring the exciting work rate, and I don’t know that the story really needs one of those 3-minute hype videos ahead of time.
Other contenders for this slot include Charlotte’s match and Breezango’s match. In the case of Charlotte, I feel there is enough material there for a lengthy pre-match video package, which hurts her case.
Breezango seems like a stronger contender for this match because the Usos are a reliable act for opening PPVs, and the match probably doesn’t need that video package.
I’m not really considering Zayn’s match too much for the opening slot because it feels to me like a match that might have trouble going 10 minutes, and opening matches are usually longer than that.
It comes down to AJ or Breezango. I’ll go with Breezango for now, but I might flip this later if I don’t like how my card is coming together.
That gives me the following card:
Segment 1: The Usos vs. Breezango
Segment 2:
Segment 3:
Segment 4:
Segment 5:
Segment 6:
Segment 7: Randy Orton vs. Jinder Mahal
Everything else
On a 7-segment WWE pay-per-view, Segment 2 and Segment 6 generally receive the least match time on the show. That means I should follow up the opening match with either Rowan or Corbin. I think it might be asking for trouble to stick a Rowan match on so early in the night, so I’m going to put the more exciting Zayn in that spot.
Because the main event match is so weak, I think WWE could be creating a disastrous ending to the show if they close it out with Rowan and then Mahal. For this particular PPV I think Segment 6 should go to either Nakamura or Styles, because those are babyfaces that the fans can get truly excited about that are worthy of closing out a card. Sure, it might kill the crowd for the main event, but I’m pretty much assuming the crowd will die for that match either way, so why double down on it by putting something unimportant on in Segment 6?
One solution to the idea of putting a big star in Segment 6 while also keeping Segment 6 from being too long is to use that spot for Nakamura’s debut, and have him defeat Ziggler in a relatively one-sided match. That’s exactly what I’m going to do here.
That gives me the following card:
Segment 1: The Usos vs. Breezango
Segment 2: Sami Zayn vs. Baron Corbin
Segment 3:
Segment 4:
Segment 5:
Segment 6: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Dolph Ziggler
Segment 7: Randy Orton vs. Jinder Mahal
I also think that Owens versus Styles could be the longest match of the night, and so it could be used to fill out the middle of the card before cooling things down with Rowan. Therefore I’ll throw Owens and Styles in Segment 4, with Rowan in Segment 5.
That gives me the following card:
Segment 1: The Usos vs. Breezango
Segment 2: Sami Zayn vs Baron Corbin
Segment 3:
Segment 4: Kevin Owens vs. AJ Styles
Segment 5: Luke Harper vs. Erick Rowan
Segment 6: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Dolph Ziggler
Segment 7: Randy Orton vs. Jinder Mahal
That leaves Charlotte for Segment 3, which I am perfectly fine with because the first two matches don’t really have much star power in it, so one of the bigger babyface stars (Nakamura, Naomi, Charlotte, Styles) should be featured in Segment 3. Naomi, Charlotte, and Becky together seems like a pretty good amount of babyface star power for that spot.
Finalized card
So here is my final prediction for the match order at Backlash 2017, along with guesses on the bell-to-bell match times.
Segment 1: The Usos vs. Breezango (10 minutes)
Segment 2: Sami Zayn vs Baron Corbin (9)
Segment 3: Naomi, Becky, Charlotte vs. Natalya, Tamina, Carmella (13)
Segment 4: Kevin Owens vs. AJ Styles (18)
Segment 5: Luke Harper vs. Erick Rowan (6)
Segment 6: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Dolph Ziggler (11)
Segment 7: Randy Orton vs. Jinder Mahal (16)
These match times only add up to 83 minutes, which falls maybe 10 minutes short of the typical 3-hour WWE PPV. This gap could be partially narrowed by extending Nakamura’s match time or perhaps adding one more filler match to the card. It’s also reasonable to think Zayn and Corbin could go longer than what I have listed.
That's my prediction for the match order at Backlash 2017. What's yours?