Monday night’s episode of Raw was the first night of the Superstar Shake-Up, which is what we’re calling the draft now, apparently. The Shake-Up actually began hours before Raw even made it onto the air, as Apollo Crews was moved from Smackdown Live to Raw.
Of course, that was just the tip of the iceberg. It was unclear going into Raw just how these “Shake-Ups” would play out, but as we learned at the outset, the Superstars moving to new brands would just show up onscreen at roughly the same time the WWE Twitter account announced the moves, with most of the assumed wheeling and dealing happening offscreen. The opening segment alone featured the returns of The Miz, Maryse, and Intercontinental Champion Dean Ambrose.
Later in the evening, Sami Zayn met with Raw general manager Kurt Angle backstage and wanted to know what was going to be happening with him. Angle told him that there was “a lot of interest” in Zayn, and later came out to tell Rollins he wanted to keep him on Raw. But for the most part, Superstars just popped up on the show. And some wrestlers were ONLY announced via Twitter and/or onscreen graphic.
On Monday, the only moves were Smackdown stars coming to Raw, and presumably tomorrow night, Raw stars will move to Smackdown. So these aren’t “trades” per se, just “moves.”
Here is the full list of moves from Monday:
- Apollo Crews to Raw
- The Miz and Maryse to Raw
- Intercontinental Champion Dean Ambrose to Raw
- Curt Hawkins to Raw
- Kalisto to Raw
- Rhyno and Heath Slater to Raw
- Bray Wyatt to Raw
- Alexa Bliss to Raw
- Mickie James to Raw
