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WWE confirms move to dual-brand PPVs starting in May

As expected, the era of brand-exclusive pay-per-views is over for at least the foreseeable future.

WWE officially announced today that they’re moving to dual-brand PPVs starting with Backlash in May. There had originally been five PPVs with both rosters scheduled for 2018, which were the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, Money in the Bank, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series.

Speculation about the change began when the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey emailed ticket holders that Backlash would now be a combined PPV with Raw and SmackDown wrestlers. Dave Meltzer reported that the belief internally was that WWE was ending brand-specific PPVs, and company officials told him than an announcement regarding that was forthcoming.

Meltzer also noted that the belief within WWE was that the formerly brand-exclusive events would be increased to four-hour main cards with two matches on the pre-show.

Elimination Chamber on February 25th will be the last Raw-only event, and Fastlane on March 11th will be the final SmackDown PPV. Those shows will set up the direction heading into WrestleMania for both brands.

WWE’s updated PPV lineup doesn’t include Payback, which was scheduled for May 27th, or Battleground, which was slated for July 15th. Extreme Rules has now been moved to July in place of Battleground.

Here’s WWE’s PPV schedule for the rest of the year:

February 25th — Elimination Chamber (Final Raw-exclusive PPV)
March 11th — Fastlane (Final SmackDown-exclusive PPV)
April 8th — WrestleMania 34
May 6th — Backlash
June 17th — Money in the Bank
July 15th — Extreme Rules
August 19th — SummerSlam
September 16th — Hell in a Cell
October 21st — TLC
November 18th — Survivor Series
December 16th — Clash of Champions