My Thoughts on the Superstar Shakeup

The night after Wrestlemania 33, Vince McMahon announced that WWE will undergo a “superstar shakeup.” Wrestlers would be switching brands and another chapter of the “new era” would be written. The following week, the shakeup happened and while some big name wrestlers did switch shows, a lot of the superstars that were swapped had little to no direction or momentum.

The Shining Stars are a prime example of this. They were the perennial jobbers of the Raw tag team division. Nobody cared about them. They were then drafted to Smackdown, underwent a name change, and proceeded to defeat American Alpha. While the victory was shocking, it also made American Alpha look weak as they lost to one of the worst teams from Raw.

Another example of swapped wrestlers with little momentum is Kalisto. The former member of the Lucha Dragons was involved in a meaningless feud with Dolph Ziggler before vanishing. He then reappeared as a member of the Raw roster and was most recently dumped in the trash by Braun Strowman. While being on Raw will finally allow him to join the cruiserweight division, the fact that he floundered on Smackdown for so long diminishes his value to the weight class.

Popular wrestlers who switched brands include Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens, the Miz, Bray Wyatt, Charlotte, and Alexa Bliss among others. It is refreshing to see big name superstars switch shows, but when you compare who is on the Raw roster with who is on the Smackdown roster, Raw easily has the better batch of wrestlers. For example, Ambrose and Miz are joining a roster that already features guys like Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, FInn Balor, and Chris Jericho. Raw is loaded. Smackdown is not. Yes, the blue brand has A.J. Styles, Shinske Nakamura, and Randy Orton, but the roster as a whole does not even come close to the amount of star power that Raw has.

In conclusion, I think that the shakeup was underwhelming. A majority of the wrestlers that swapped brands were not utilized much to begin with, and Raw clearly has the better roster in terms of popularity. Smackdown appears to be in complete rebuild mode after their roster was essentially raided. Raw has been presented as the flagship show ever since the brand extension. The superstar shakeup just made it more apparent.