{"id":159733,"date":"2026-04-20T23:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T03:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=159733"},"modified":"2026-04-20T23:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T03:11:08","slug":"roman-reigns-to-decide-his-first-challenger-for-wwe-backlash-next-week-on-raw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2026\/04\/20\/roman-reigns-to-decide-his-first-challenger-for-wwe-backlash-next-week-on-raw\/","title":{"rendered":"Roman Reigns to Decide His First Challenger for WWE Backlash Next Week on Raw"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raw after WrestleMania was jam-packed from start to finish<\/a>, with its closing moments dropping quite the bombshell on what’s next for the world heavyweight champion, Roman Reigns, and the title around his waist.<\/p>\n

“Little Cousin” Jacob Fatu Calls his Shot against Roman Reigns<\/h2>\n

On a night that saw Cody Rhodes agree to fight CM Punk at a time of his choosing<\/a>, WWE’s other champion also seems to have gotten his next challenger in the form of his “little cousin” Jacob Fatu.<\/p>\n

Reigns made his way from his limo to gorilla, prepared to celebrate his victory and address the future, but he was met by the Usos backstage first. Jimmy and Jey greeted their cousin before Reigns told the two of them to join him in the ring. Reigns said he was going to keep things simple tonight, but then he saw the Usos and figured he needed to address some family business first. Reigns told the Usos he missed them, and he missed standing in the ring with them, doing business together. For four straight years, the three of them ran the entire business because they have always been stronger together. Reigns doesn’t like seeing the family disrespected and noted that it’s only happening because they are scattered and vulnerable to attacks. If they were still the Bloodline, no one, especially not CM Punk or washed-up rappers, would be running their mouths to them. So Reigns proposed a new alliance. He didn’t want subservience this time, but he did want his cousins to stand with him as together, they could run things once again<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Big brother Jimmy said he spoke for both him and Jey when he said, Reigns would always be their OTC. And that if the three of them found themselves in the same arena and in the same city, they’d always be united. The Usos threw the ones up, but before Reigns could say anything else, Jacob Fatu’s music hit.<\/p>\n

Reigns seemed confused as his younger cousin came out, suggesting there were only two reasons Fatu was there. When Fatu said he wasn’t there to acknowledge the champ, Reigns figured he was there to stake a claim to the title. Fatu concurred, saying he didn’t want the title; he needed the title. He needed everything that came with the title because he had a family to take care of and would do anything to give them a better life, even if that meant going through Reigns to do so. Reigns agreed with Fatu, saying he wanted him to have what he needed and to provide for his family, but he questioned if Fatu could handle the burden of being champion. And if he were to lose, could he handle the burden of having to acknowledge him? Reigns said the air is thin, and there’s not a lot of footing here at the top of the mountain, so he was going to give Fatu the week to think about whether this is what he really wanted. Reigns wasn’t saying yes or no to the proposed title match at Backlash, but he told Fatu he wasn’t sure if the younger Samoan was ready. Reigns condescended to Fatu, calling him his “little cousin” before saying he would see him next week on Raw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raw after WrestleMania was jam-packed from start to finish, with its closing moments dropping quite the bombshell on what’s next for the world heavyweight champion, Roman Reigns, and the title around his waist. “Little Cousin” Jacob Fatu Calls his Shot against Roman Reigns On a night that saw Cody Rhodes agree to fight CM Punk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2418,"featured_media":146833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12,2192,25,4,3],"tags":[3006,9339,77,153,144,4834,9655],"class_list":["post-159733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-wrestling","category-raw","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-jacob-fatu","tag-raw-after-wrestlemania","tag-roman-reigns","tag-the-usos","tag-wwe-backlash","tag-wwe-world-heavyweight-championship","tag-wwe-wrestlemania-42"],"modified_by":"Marilee Gallagher, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159734,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159733\/revisions\/159734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}