WWE Monday Night Raw preview and schedule: May 7, 2018

Bengaluru, May 7: WWE Raw has been through a chaotic phase over the past few weeks with The Greatest Royal Rumble, and Superstar Shakeup. Hence, there was not much time left for the buildup to the Backlash PPV.

We head into tonight's edition of Raw hosted at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale, New York with hope to build up well for the Money in the Bank PPV. The main focus on tonight's show like its been lately, would be on the franchise player as well as the participants who will be in line to get a lifetime opportunity on June 17th in the MITB match.

The live telecast of the show in India will be available via Sony Ten 1 Network on Tuesday (May 8) from 5.30 AM IST onwards, while later in the day the repeat will be aired on the same network at 4 PM and 9 PM IST.

Brock Lesnar missed the Backlash PPV, hence the Universal Championship was not defended on the nigh. Meanwhile, Roman Reigns was decided as the real winner at Greatest Royal Rumble after it was evident that he hit the floor first. This was addressed in last week's edition of WWE Raw, as well. Now that he is done with the big task at hand - match against Samoa Joe at Backlash - now the question is will the Big Dog get another opportunity for the Universal title.

WWE.com teased of the possibility with a statement on their official website:

"Roman Reigns scored a huge victory over Samoa Joe in the main event on WWE Backlash, and after the controversial outcome against Lesnar at the Greatest Royal Rumble event, many are calling him the "Uncrowned Universal Champion." Is The Big Dog destined to once again step into the belly of The Beast?"

Apart from Roman Reigns, there were several other superstars from Raw who had an impressive showdown at Backlash. Seth Rollins, Braun Strowman, and Bobby Lashley are amongst those names. So, the chances are high that we will witness a number one contender's match on either Raw or Money in the Bank PPV for the respective titles.

Speaking of the MITB PPV, there will be at least a couple of matches to decide the competitors for it. Just like the earlier editions, there will be a set of qualifying matches from both men's and women's division. The winner of these contests will be inserted into the opportunistic match in June.

In the women's division, Alexa Bliss is set to be out of action for sometimes now that she picked up a shoulder injury. In her absence, new feuds need to be start with the champion Nia Jax. Meanwhile, The Riott Squad has picked up quite the momentum by toppling both Bayley and Sasha Banks. We need to see if these two can get back on the same page to counter-attack.

Also, a new set of rivalries might pick up on the show for the Intercontinental and the WWE Raw tag team titles. The champions are yet to enter a fresh feud after defending their titles in the bygone WWE Network-exclusives.