The WWE Draft was the focus of tonight’s SmackDown, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t big developments for Backlash. One such development was finding an opponent for WWE Women’s Champion Bayley, which was to be decided in a match between Naomi and Tiffany Stratton. The match was thrilling and featured a few close calls, but was upended by new SmackDown signing Nia Jax, who took out Bayley and Naomi. That cut the match short, but Nick Aldis revealed afterward that Bayley would be defending her Title against Naomi and Stratton in a Triple Threat at Backlash instead.
Naomi went right at Stratton at the start of the match, taking her down and hitting a few strikes before Stratton regrouped on the outside. Naomi hit a sliding kick that knocked her down and then slammed her several times into the ring apron. Naomi went up top but Stratton dodged the move and then slammed Naomi into the ring ropes before a hip attack knocked her to the mat.
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Stratton stayed aggressive, but Naomi countered and brought Stratton down onto the ring apron with a pile driver before knocking her to the floor. Back from the commercial, Stratton had found a way to turn things around, and but Naomi kept fighting back and countering her moves. Naomi dipped into her expansive bag of unique offense with several moves before knocking Stratton to the mat, but Stratton wasn’t down for long.
Both superstars ran at each other and had the same idea, knocking each other to the mat. Naomi hit hard with a flurry of strikes and kicks and then hit a vicious kick to the head before driving Stratton’s head into the turnbuckle.
That’s when Nia Jax came out of nowhere and attacked Bayley, throwing her into the announce table. Naomi saw it happen and ran to help but got thrown into the ring post by Jax. Jax left but Stratton capitalized, putting both Naomi and Bayley into the ring and hitting a moonsault on both to close out the segment.
That left things unclear for Backlash, but luckily General Manager Nick Aldis stepped in to provide some clarification. Aldis revealed that the match at Backlash would be a Triple Threat match for the Women’s Championship between Bayley, Naomi, and Stratton. After night one of the draft, Bayley is the only person of the three who is assigned to a brand, so we’ll have to wait until night two on Raw to find out where Stratton and Naomi are headed.
Even if they end up being drafted to Raw, the new rosters won’t take effect until after Backlash, so the Triple Threat match is unaffected. We’ll have to see where everyone ends up, but Backlash is starting to solidify its card, and now there’s another Championship officially on the line.
What did you think of the match? You can talk all things wrestling with me on Threads and Twitter @mattaguilarcb!
