Cody Rhodes doesn’t have to worry about anyone stealing away his main event this time

It’s one thing to predict the winners and losers at Backlash 2024, but how about taking a guess at the match order for the event?

Backlash takes place today (Sat., May 4) from LDLC Arena in Lyon-Décines, France, with the main card starting at 1 pm ET, live on Peacock and the WWE Network.

WWE has announced five different segments for the main card of this event. Here is my subjective view of how important each of these five segments rank, ordered from most important to least important.

1. Cody Rhodes vs. AJ Styles
2. Bayley vs. Naomi vs. Tiffany Stratton
3. Damian Priest vs. Jey Uso
4. Randy Orton & Kevin Owens vs. The Bloodline
5. Kabuki Warriors vs. Jade Cargill & Bianca Belair

Main event

There was a lot of drama and rumors of games being played backstage during the build up to last month’s WrestleMania 40, in terms of WWE’s decision on how to handle the main event match. That’s all out the window now for Backlash, on what is a clear B-show lineup. Cody Rhodes was crowned the new face of WWE at WrestleMania, so now he gets to start carrying the company on his back by headlining this event in France. His match with AJ Styles doesn’t exactly have the most captivating story, but Cody is the biggest star on the card without all the part-timers around, so he’s a safe bet to compete in today’s main event.

Everything else

Two of the remaining four matches are in the women’s division, and WWE generally keeps some distance between those matches on the show. Therefore I’ll open the card with one of them, and put the other one right before the main event. Bayley is a great choice to get the crowd in France excited right at the opening bell, so I’ll put her in Segment 1. Jade Cargill’s match fits in better right before the main event, in Segment 4.

That leaves The Bloodline and Damian Priest for Segment 2 and Segment 3, in some order. I’ll place the non-title match earlier in the card.

Finalized card

So here is my final prediction for the match order at Backlash 2024, along with guesses on the bell-to-bell match times:

Segment 1: Bayley vs. Naomi vs. Tiffany Stratton (14 minutes)
Segment 2: Randy Orton & Kevin Owens vs. The Bloodline (18)
Segment 3: Damian Priest vs. Jey Uso (16)
Segment 4: Kabuki Warriors vs. Jade Cargill & Bianca Belair (10)
Segment 5: Cody Rhodes vs. AJ Styles (22)

These times add up to 80 minutes, which is short for a three hour WWE card. Maybe another segment will be added to the lineup during the show, otherwise this is looking more like a 2.5 hour event.

That’s my prediction for the match order at Backlash. What’s yours?