10 Burning Questions For WWE Backlash 2018

2. Will Rudderless Reigns Stop Samoa Joe?

wwe backlash 2018
WWE.com

Whether you love Roman Reigns and think he’s the greatest star in WWE or you think he’s an overrated, over-pushed guy, one thing is undeniable: Reigns suffered a huge blow to his momentum and character last month after losing two high-profile Universal Championship matches to Brock Lesnar.

Quite simply, Roman is like a rudderless ship right now. He doesn’t have a logical path forward for the top title on Raw, he’s booed mercilessly by a majority of the fanbase, and he’s now turned into a whining conspiracy theorist about his losses. The one thing that’s really positive going into Sunday is that he and Samoa Joe have great chemistry.

But a lot of that is due to Joe’s exceptional mic work, painting Roman perfectly and being a great opportunist when it comes to attacking. With Joe now on SmackDown, there’s a decent chance he could vie for the WWE Championship soon enough. Does that possibility help or hurt him on Sunday?

Reigns could use some direction, but beating Joe doesn’t guarantee that, especially since Joe is on a different show. And with the Samoan Submission Machine just returning, a win would do him a lot of good, while losing to Roman would tamp down his bravado a bit.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.