WWE has recently announced that, starting with their Backlash pay-per-view (PPV), they will no longer be holding brand-exclusive events. Previously the only events that RAW and SmackDown Superstars merged at were the big four: WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, and Survivor Series. WWE has also dropped two of its PPVs from its yearly lineup as well.

One reason for the switch is because live attendance has been doing rather poorly as of late. Ratings haven’t exactly been doing well either. For example, SmackDown Live’s October 31st episode saw a ridiculous 21% drop from the previous week. The show went from a 2.699 million viewer rating to a 2.119 million. A photo from this week’s SmackDown Live crowd showed that the attendance was absolutely terrible. Tons of seats were empty and a section of the arena was even tarped off:

I honestly feel horrible for the talent on #SDLive because this isn’t their fault. Something needs to change ASAP. #WWE pic.twitter.com/fXTHSx6xOA

— The HOBBY Daily (@TheHobbyDaily) February 21, 2018

Fastlane is coming up and the main event is scheduled to be a WWE Championship defense of AJ Styles against Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Dolph Ziggler, and Baron Corbin. The winner of the match will go on to WrestleMania to face Shinsuke Nakamura for the WWE Title. It has also been announced that United States Champion Bobby Roode will defend his title against Randy Orton at the event as well.