With the shadow of WWE’s big-money move to Fox for SmackDown Live looming large on the horizon, pro wrestling’s biggest brand has completed their annual post-Wrestlemania talent shuffle. While there were some star names added to both RAW and SmackDown, some of the moves have left people scratching their heads – not least Vince McMahon’s questionable decision to rename a tag team who are already well known, and already had a perfectly good name. We’ll get to that in a moment, but first of all, let’s deal with the headlines.
A New Roman Empire
Moving too many names at the top of the card would be dangerous. In recent months the line between which superstars are supposed to be on RAW, and which are supposed to be on SmackDown, has blurred somewhat as wrestlers have turned up on both shows with seeming impunity. We should expect to see that happen less frequently now the draft has been completed – firstly because it would render the draft pointless, and secondly because Fox is likely to want a show with a strong identity, rather than a watered-down version of what the USA Network is already showing.
The big moves were AJ Styles to RAW, and Roman Reigns to SmackDown. Moving Styles makes a lot of sense. The veteran wrestler – still considered to be among the very best in-ring performers in the world despite now being over 40 – has done everything he could hope to do on SmackDown. He’s had two WWE Championship reigns that nobody saw coming when he walked through the door, and there were no major feuds left for him to battle. Having him on RAW opens the door to a potential dream feud with WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins; one which could easily headline Summerslam.
Reigns, who everybody knows is McMahon’s golden boy, is a huge signing for SmackDown. The blue brand has always been seen as ‘the B show,’ so by sending a headline act of his stature, WWE is telling Fox that they’re going to put a renewed focus on their new acquisition. It also avoids a second Reigns vs. Rollins feud for a major title. Nobody wants to see the Shield brothers do battle again, but there are many fresh faces on SmackDown Reigns could get involved with. Putting him in the ring with the white-hot WWE Champion Kofi Kingston might not be a great move at the moment; it would likely put an end to the cheers he’s been receiving after successfully overcoming cancer. There’s a monster for him to battle in the shape of Lars Sullivan, though, and he could always go another few rounds with Daniel Bryan.
The Viking Experience?
The low point of the draft process is, without a shadow of a doubt, the promotion of reigning NXT Tag Team Champions War Machine to the main roster. Normally any such promotion is great for a talent’s career, but changing the team’s name to ‘The Viking Experience’ and individually calling them ‘Erik and Ivar’ instead of the existing ‘Hanson and Rowe’ smacks of the worst kind of mid-1990s gimmick shtick. It would be one thing to rename wrestlers who were coming into the company from elsewhere, but the pairing has been prominently featured on NXT television for the last year under their old names, as well as appearing in WWE videogames as ‘The War Raiders’ as well. Fans have heavily rejected the new name, and it will be interesting to see whether WWE stick with it.
Tag Team Turmoil
Here’s where the draft seems to make no sense at all – tag teams have been split up seemingly for the sake of splitting them up, with no storyline or clear direction of what to do with them. It’s like WWE loaded all of their wrestlers into a slot machine, gave the reels a spin, and decided to go with whatever came out. If WWE’s creative team wanted to do that, they should have gone to Late Casino and done it for real by playing ‘Lucha Legends’ or ‘Lucha Maniacs.’ At least that way, they’d have had half a chance of coming away with something that looked like a win. As it stands, it looks more like they’re hoping for the same thing online slots players hope for when they’re on a bad run – something lucky is going to land out of nowhere and come up trumps for them.
For a start, we have the Bayley and Sasha debacle. Everybody who follows wrestling on social media knows that the Boss & Hug connection wasn’t exactly thrilled with losing their tag team titles at WrestleMania, and Sasha hasn’t shown up to work since. Rumour has it that she’s asked for her release, and been told to go away and think about it for a couple of weeks. Bayley has now been sent to SmackDown, with Sasha seemingly (at least nominally) staying on RAW, so that ends the prospect of even getting a rematch for the titles that they fought so hard to create.
Then we have the Riott Squad being broken up. The trio of anarchic women haven’t exactly been blessed with wins over the past year, but they were an entertaining act which many people thought were being groomed for a better position in the future. Now Liv Morgan is on SmackDown and seemingly marooned there, and the future of Ruby Riott and Sarah Logan on RAW is unclear without their partner.
They’re not the only ones suffering; Sanity has been split up by leader Eric Young’s relocation to RAW, and it would seem that Alexander Wolfe took it so hard that he’s also asked for his release. With Luke Harper having quit over the weekend as well, the perception from the outside is that WWE has a locker room full of unhappy wrestlers, many of whom may be looking at upstart promotion All Elite Wrestling and believing they see greener pastures. It’s a perspective that Vince McMahon will be keen to quash as quickly as possible.
The Best Of The Rest
Other changes appear to be more functional than they are exciting. The mid-tier titles have swapped brands, with Intercontinental Champion Finn Balor gone to SmackDown, and United States Champion Samoa Joe heading in the other direction. They’re likely to serve the same purpose as they did previously, albeit with new opponents. Two former Cruiserweight Champions have been promoted to the main roster, with Cedric Alexander on RAW and the hyper-talented Buddy Murphy on SmackDown. Both are incredible in-ring performers, but it remains to be seen whether creative will give them the chance to shine. Mustafa Ali (and yes, we’re going to insist on keeping his first name) hasn’t been treated too badly on the blue brand, but factoring more ‘smaller guys’ in may be difficult. It also begs the question of how much of a future the 205Live brand has, with so many star names pulled away and fan engagement with the show nosediving.
What will be will be, though, and the stones are now cast for the next 12 months of WWE programming. Who will make the most of their new environment? Who will disappear into the mix and end up shouting from the sidelines? However much we may occasionally complain about the booking, we all know we’ll be watching every Monday and Tuesday night to find out.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
