This past Sunday at the Backlash 2018 pay-per-view, AJ Styles retained the WWE Championship against Shinsuke Nakamura, but only in a draw, whereas Samoa Joe was unsuccessful in his attempt to defeat Roman Reigns in a match that amounted to absolutely nothing.

Needless to say, both Styles and Joe are in need of a change in direction for their careers and cannot continue this current path, or this type of booking will completely fly in the face of the potential not just of both men, but the SmackDown brand as a whole.

The best way to correct all the problems in one fell swoop is to build to the idea and execution of Samoa Joe being the one to take the WWE Championship away from Styles.

Half of the reason this is a necessity is the way WWE chose to book this feud between Styles and Nakamura, which has gone on for nearly five months at this point.

It all started with Nakamura's Royal Rumble win, where he immediately singled out The Phenomenal One as the person he'd like to challenge. He didn't say he wanted the WWE Championship, he said he wanted Styles himself.

This forced a scenario where it had to be Nakamura vs. Styles at WrestleMania for any of that to make sense, but WWE had no idea what to do in the meantime for a feud between two babyfaces and opted to have Nakamura sit out a few weeks, losing momentum.

Their response to this was to have him fight Rusev at Fastlane, despite how Rusev had been getting cheered, which only hindered Nakamura's progress.

When the time came for Styles and Nakamura to start working together, the entire feud revolved around the line "knee to face" and a constant reminder from the commentary team that this was going to be a dream match.

The match at WrestleMania didn't live up to the hype, and it ended with Styles retaining, before Nakamura turned heel and hit him with a low-blow.

Then, WWE hit a rough patch with the Superstar Shake-up, Greatest Royal Rumble and Backlash, where it became obvious the creative team was in shambles; not planning much out, rewriting what they had planned out and replacing those ideas with simple ones just to get past the week, and so on.

There didn't seem to be much effort in continuity or trying to establish new storylines for some people, while others bounced around with zero firm direction, which meant the easy call for the WWE Championship match in Saudi Arabia was to just do a rematch.

Despite Nakamura losing his title shot and winning nothing to earn himself another opportunity, he and Styles wrestled again, where the two would fight to a draw as both were counted out—a sign that WWE really didn't want to try to figure out something else for Backlash other than yet another repeat.

That indeed happened, with Nakamura and Styles fighting for the third time, only for that No Disqualification match—a match specifically designed to have a winner—to end in yet another no-contest.

On SmackDown this week, both Nakamura and Styles said their feud is not over but did nothing else, outside of a dark match following the tapings that saw Styles retain the championship yet again.

By now, Nakamura has had more than enough chances to win this title, and even if he were to somehow come out victorious at Money in the Bank in another match, there's not as much heat to seeing them wrestle—nor would that be able to carry the two into another fight at Extreme Rules, with Styles demanding his obligatory rematch.

At this point, with the way WWE has booked Nakamura, he's squandered his shots at the title not just with his multiple failed attempts against Styles, but his previously unsuccessful matches against Jinder Mahal last year.

If WWE wanted him as the champion, the trigger would have been pulled already, because the creative team has done a terrible job trying to keep him from looking like he's almost at that level, but not quite—a main event talent who can't be trusted as the main event guy.

Nakamura can't win the WWE Championship and then hold it for a significant amount of time, as there aren't enough worthwhile babyface opponents for him on the brand to fight against without dragging this Styles feud out even longer, which by no means should be done.

This means somebody else needs to step in to take the belt from Styles, and it just so happens that Samoa Joe is in desperate need of that kind of a push.

Since coming up to the main roster, Joe has accomplished absolutely nothing whatsoever, which is astonishing to say.

He attacked Seth Rollins to make an impact, but he wasn't booked in a match at WrestleMania 33 for some reason, even though there is a match on the card every year now that requires no build, no storyline and every possible person can compete in it—the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.

Instead of being slotted into that as a winner in 2017, it went to Mojo Rawley, because it was more important to have Rob Gronkowski in a moment and then to drop Rawley's push a week or so later than it was to give Joe absolutely anything to do while he was fresh on the Raw brand.

You would think WWE would follow that misstep up with a solid push for Joe so he could build some momentum as a top guy on Raw, but with Brock Lesnar holding the Universal Championship, Braun Strowman's popularity increasing and Roman Reigns being the constant focal point, Joe was given nothing to do.

Over the course of 2017, he wasn't able to have many solid feuds, but those he did have, he lost, like his failed attempts at winning the Universal Championship.

He would look strong going into a program, only to come up short and with nothing to show for it.

All signs started to point toward a possible feud with John Cena at the beginning of this year, only for Joe to miss out on the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania yet again due to an injury.

Following this, WWE decided the best thing for him to do was to job out to Reigns, as it seems the mentality is probably that The Big Dog needed a win to offset his two previous losses to Lesnar—things the WWE creative team could have avoided, as they're the ones scripting everything and writing themselves into these corners.

Joe made a big stink about looking strong on SmackDown and making Reigns cower beneath him, but he wrestled a match that was horribly received and didn't even win it.

He had no segment on this week's SmackDown to try to bounce back from this loss, and since moving over in the Superstar Shake-up, his stock has only gone down.

Now it's Joe's time to get a win to help counterbalance all of these losses, but one single win in a pointless feud isn't going to do it.

WWE can't just have Joe squash Sin Cara again in an attempt to make him look strong for the audience while avoiding sacrificing anybody who actually matters to the hierarchy, as wins over jobbers hold little value when trying to establish someone as a top heel again.

There needs to be a major shift. He needs something big, with the WWE Championship being the biggest thing he can win.

As it stands, it's unknown if he'll be competing in the Money in the Bank match or if Nakamura will get yet another title shot against Styles, but in a perfect world, Joe spends the next few weeks wrecking the roster until he's given a title shot, while Nakamura has to be in the ladder match as he's had his chances.

A win over Styles where Joe is crowned the new champion will wake people up, but WWE would then have to follow it up with a decent enough title reign to avoid making him a transitional champion.

Styles could have his rematch at Extreme Rules, where Joe would be victorious yet again, moving on to someone like Randy Orton for SummerSlam.

The Viper is at the perfect stage in his career where he still seems like a big deal and has an incredible amount of clout to his name but doesn't need to win anything, so a feud where he loses to Joe and puts him over will help solidify The Samoan Submission Machine as the most dangerous man on the roster.

Then, it will be time to turn things around with the babyface everyone is clamoring for, Daniel Bryan, being the one to take the title from Joe.

In an ideal world, this would open up a journey where The Miz could cash in the Money in the Bank contract to take the title from Bryan, setting up the money match between those two at WrestleMania—particularly with a Royal Rumble win from Bryan, which would fulfill the dreams of a vast majority of the WWE Universe in a way the company hasn't been catering to in the past few years.

By that point, Joe will have had a decent reign atop the SmackDown roster and would have a legitimate claim to facing someone like Cena at WrestleMania to pick up where they left off, as it's clear those two want to work together in some way.

Styles will be perfectly fine once he loses the championship to Joe, as he is one of the most popular people in WWE today and could have feuds with Big Cass, Andrade "Cien" Almas and even be one of the challengers to The Miz once he steals that title.

If you're worried about Nakamura in this equation, you should be. He hasn't been handled well and will need some recovery time, but his career wouldn't be dead in the water, either.

Nakamura could easily stay in the United States Championship scene and possibly even win that title down the line, as it would put less pressure on his shoulders while also giving him future momentum to work with, as he could feud with many of the babyfaces he's yet to fight, like Orton and Jeff Hardy.

Pushing Nakamura aside and putting the title on Samoa Joe is the best direction SmackDown can go right now, as it leads to a wide variety of feuds for not just those three men involved, but everybody else on the roster for the entire next season into WrestleMania 35.

Going with a Nakamura title victory at Money in the Bank will keep things stagnant and feeling as though WWE dragged things out due to sheer laziness, which is certainly not something the company can afford to have fans thinking after such a lackluster few weeks.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.