We’ve been talking about it for weeks but Shane McMahon made it official on this week’s episode of Smackdown Live. McMahon announced that the September event titled “Backlash” will be a Smackdown-only show.
The “big 4” shows (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series) will feature Superstars from both brands. It’s not clear if that means that we’ll see Raw/Smackdown Superstars wrestling against each other but my guess is that they would hold off “dream matches” for WrestleMania. Backlash will be a WWE Network exclusive show but all brand-specific shows after Backlash will also air on pay-per-view.
Here are the WWE Network/PPV shows scheduled for the rest of 2016:
SummerSlam – 8/21/16 (Raw/Smackdown)
Backlash – 9/11/16 – (Network Exclusive – Smackdown show)
Clash Of Champions – 9/25/16 (Raw show)
No Mercy – 10/9/16 – (Smackdown show)
Hell in a Cell – 10/30/16 – (Raw show)
Survivor Series – 11/20/16 – (Raw/Smackdown)
TLC – 12/4/16 – (Smackdown)
Roadblock – 12/18/16 – (Raw)
The brand split has certainly made things interesting in WWE.
