Monday Night Raw preview: Three questions for the April 18 episode featuring Austin Theory vs. Finn Balor

WWE Monday Night Raw comes live from the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, NY, tonight and as we’re starting to move further away from Wrestlemania 38, we’re starting to build towards the Wrestlemania Backlash pay-per-view next month in Providence, RI.

Whether it’s an extremely important episode or a completely throwaway show that will be forgotten about in two weeks, there’s always questions that surround each edition of Monday Night Raw. I’ll ask some pertaining to tonight’s episode.

What will come out of the Women’s tag team title match?

The headliner match of tonight’s show will be a match for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship as Sasha Banks/Naomi will defend the belts against Rhea Ripley/Liv Morgan. This is actually a rematch from two weeks ago as the champs triumphed over the challengers, causing some brief tension between Ripley and Morgan. They were granted a rematch that was supposed to happen last week, but postponed due to Ripley being placed into COVID protocols.

This is rumored to be the main event of tonight’s show and I’m curious about a possible angle coming out of the contest. Banks and Naomi just won the belts at Wrestlemania, so they’re not going to drop it this quickly on free television. That leaves the challengers, who I alluded had slight friction a few weeks ago after they lost their previous title opportunity. Do we get Ripley outright turning on Morgan to set up a singles feud between the two? Or, is it something deeper than that?

The internet scuttlebutt has been that Ripley is a candidate to join the new faction/stable/alliance/whatever you want to call it with Edge and Damian Priest and those with a keen eye have noticed that a purple light appears during her backstage segments. Let’s see if any of this is connected.

Will Austin Theory win his first title/what is next for Finn Balor?

Finn Balor will put his United States Championship on the line tonight against Austin Theory tonight and we may very well see a new champion. Theory has had a rocket strapped to his back since being called up to Raw in October and got to showcase himself in front of the entire world against Pat McAfee at Wrestlemania. Putting the belt on him here may very well be a reward for the young upstart.

And if that’s the case, then where the heck are we going with Finn Balor next. Balor was off of television earlier in the year as he handled some visa issues and defeated Damian Priest for the U.S. title shortly after his return. Since then...it’s been nothing really. He was left off the ‘Mania card and it doesn’t appear that there’s any major plans for him moving forward. Perhaps he’ll be a Money in the Bank contender come the summer? We’ll find out but things are a bit murky right now for the Irishman.

Will we get a Roman Reigns appearance tonight?

At the forefront of the Bloodline storyline right now is The Usos seeking to unify both the Smackdown and Raw Tag Team Championships and they’ll get a shot when facing RK-Bro at Wrestlemania Backlash in a few weeks.

Oddly enough, that leaves unified WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns as a background character for the time being. Reigns emerged triumphant over Lesnar at ‘Mania and hasn’t been rushed into anything major in the two weeks since. They teased Shinsuke Nakamura as the next challenger on Smackdown two weeks ago but didn’t really follow up on that in this past week’s episode. I just wonder if the “Tribal Chief” will grace the Buffalo crowd with is presence tonight.