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The fourth annual Fastlane event takes place this weekend live from Columbus, Ohio and so far there are already four matches announced for the show.
This year's Fastlane will decide who will walk into WrestleMania as the WWE Champion as AJ Styles defends against John Cena, Baron Corbin, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Dolph Ziggler. The winner of this six-way will then face Shinsuke Nakamura at WrestleMania in less than five weeks time.
Even though there have only been three Fastlane events in the past, there are still a number of useful facts that are worth knowing ahead of this year's show.
#6 Back In 2015, Fastlane replaced Elimination Chamber
Fastlane was only established as a WWE pay-per-view back in 2015 where it was put in the February slot in place of Elimination Chamber. It was reported that the company was having issues finding venues that would hold the huge steel structure, so Fastlane was a better option for the company.
Despite Fastlane replacing Elimination Chamber, the event still took place as a Network exclusive event later in the year, in May instead. Elimination Chamber has now been put back in the February slot on the pay-per-view schedule whilst Fastlane has been pushed down to March ever since the brand split back in 2016.
#5 This is the third time the United States Championship will be defended at the event
The United States Championship has been defended at Fastlane twice in the past three years and will be defended by Bobby Roode this weekend as well. This is the most that any one title has been defended in the short history of the event.
As far as World Championships go, the Universal Championship is the only one that has been defended at the event in the past since the first two Fastlane events boasted a main event in which the winner would face the Champion at WrestleMania instead of at the show itself.
The Intercontinental Championship has only been defended twice at the event as well, but since it was switched over to a SmackDown pay-per-view this year, it means that the title isn't on the line this weekend.
#4 Fastlane was originally set to be called FastTrack
When WWE had decided to replace Elimination Chamber with Fastlane back in 2015 the company wanted to be able to make the show fit in with their illusion of a Road To WrestleMania.
This meant that the company wanted to state that they were on the "Fastlane to WrestleMania" which could be why one of the names that the show was originally set to be was FastTrack since that could have also fitted in with this play on words.
WWE enjoys making the graphics a car, so it seems that Fastlane or FastTrack would have been the best option when it comes to names for the event.
#3 Charlotte has been part of the Women's Championship match for the past three years
Charlotte made her debut on the main roster back in 2015 which allowed her to take part in Fastlane back in 2016. Charlotte defended the Divas Championship against Brie Bella at her first Fastlane before fighting Bayley for the Raw Women's Championship back in 2017 and this year she is defending the SmackDown Women's Championship against Ruby Riott.
It seems that this fact as a whole shows just how much the women's division has changed over the past few years since there have been three different titles on the line at the past three events alone.
#2 The shortest match at the event was just 22 seconds
Fastlane may have only been a pay-per-view since 2015, but it seems that last year Kevin Owens and Goldberg made history when they competed in the main event for the Universal Championship.
This was just Goldberg's second match in more than a decade and it seems that WWE was saving him for his WrestleMania match against Brock Lesnar because he only competed for 22 seconds.
Goldberg managed to defeat Owens after his former friend Chris Jericho made his return for the first time since the Festival of Friendship and provided the distraction. Jericho and Owens went on to face off at WrestleMania while Goldberg defended his Championship against Lesnar.
#1 Fastlane 2017 boasted 10 matches!
This year's Fastlane event is now just days away and there are only four matches officially announced for the card. There were only six matches announced for last month's Elimination Chamber match and it could be argued that the shows are much shorter since the brand split, but Fastlane 2017 could be the exception to this rule.
Last year's Fastlane was the first non-WrestleMania pay-per-view to take place in March and boasted the longest card that the event has ever had with 10 matches. Five of these matches were straightforward one-on-one matches whilst the Raw Tag Team Championships, Cruiserweight Championship, Raw Women's Championship and the Universal Championships were all on the line.
This years event could set the record for having the least amount of matches in the history of the event since 2015 boasted seven, 2016 had eight and this year has only four.
