WWE Backlash 2017 live stream: Time, TV schedule, matches, and how to watch online

WWE Backlash is on Sunday, and it’s promising to be an exciting event as the first SmackDown Live Pay-per-View show after WrestleMania 33. There’s been a lot of things brewing over the last six weeks since WrestleMania, and it’s all coming to a head at the Allstate Arena.

Eight months ago at the last Backlash event, WWE fans were treated to an unexpectedly excellent show. AJ Styles won the WWE World Heavyweight Championship from Dean Ambrose, giving fans a champion they never thought they would see no matter how much they wanted it: Becky Lynch became the first-ever WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion in an intense six-woman match; Heath Slater and Rhyno won the first-ever WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship to culminate an excellent tag team tournament; and The Miz defended his Intercontinental Championship in a shockingly good match against Dolph Ziggler.

This year, some of the faces are different, thanks to the so-called “superstar shakeup” that changed the Raw and SmackDown rosters, the champions are different, but the stakes are just as high as ever — and the excitement is high enough to match.

Three titles will be on the line on Sunday, with Randy Orton defending the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against Jinder Mahal, who will have the Singh Brothers lurking to back him up. The Usos lost the SmackDown Tag Team Championship title match to Slater and Rhyno last year, but this year they enter Backlash as the champions, with Tyler Breeze and Fandango riding a surprising but very fun wave of momentum to challenge them. The third title on the line is the WWE United States Championship, brought to SmackDown from Raw by Kevin Owens, who will be defending his belt as the self-dubbed “New Face of America” against A.J. Styles.

There will be four non-title matches as well, including former Wyatt Family brothers Luke Harper and Erick Rowan going head to head, Baron Corbin trying to prove a brutally physical point to Sami Zayne, and a six-woman tag team match between the so-called “Welcoming Committee” of Natalya, Carmella, and Tamina and a team lead by current SmackDown Women’s Champion Naomi, who will be backed up by Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, all of whom have had to deal with a multitude of issues from the “Committee” in recent weeks.

But the non-title match most fans are looking forward to involves Dolph Ziggler, who is trying to spoil the much-anticipated in-ring debut of Shinsuke Nakamura, who will be wrestling in his first main-roster match on Sunday after enjoying a year of profound success in NXT. Despite being a two-time NXT Champion and being one of the most prolific and successful wrestlers in recent Japanese history in NJPW, Nakamura is seen as a “fraud” and a non-factor by Ziggler, who will try to re-establish himself as a major force in WWE after years of being frankly irrelevant. But Ziggler is still a good wrestler and will work to his utmost to overcome Nakamura, making this an excellent match for fans who haven’t seen the purveyor of Japanese “Strong Style” wrestling to see him in action for the first time.

Event Date/Time: day, 8 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. local

Venue: Allstate Arena, Maine Township, Ill.

Watch It: The event will be shown live on the WWE Network subscription service, which has a free month for new subscribers.

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