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List of Names Moving From Smackdown to Raw in Part 1 of WWE Superstar Shake-up

By John Canton • Published 17th April 2018
TJR Wrestling

Here’s the full list of names of Smackdown stars that moved to Raw, which I covered in-depth in my Raw Deal review last night. Just like last year, WWE made no attempt to explain what kind of transactions these are. They did not say if Raw General Manager Kurt Angle made trades with Smackdown Commissioner Shane McMahon and General Manager Paige. At one point, Angle hinted at that by saying that Daniel Bryan really wanted The Miz on Smackdown and he still has pull over there, but it’s not like WWE specified who got traded for who at any point. I doubt WWE will attempt to explain things.

There are 19 names on here and one big name called up from NXT that WWE.com included on their list of talent that moved even though he wasn’t on Smackdown. Don’t be sloppy, WWE.

1. Kevin Owens

2. Sami Zayn (Owens and Zayn were not active members of Smackdown due to being fired in the storyline a few weeks ago, but since they were on Smackdown in the last year I’ll include them here like WWE did.)

3. Jinder Mahal

4. Bobby Roode

5. Natalya

6. Ruby Riott (Riott Squad)

7. Sarah Logan (Riott Squad)

8. Liv Morgan (Riott Squad)

9. Dolph Ziggler

10. Baron Corbin

11. Fandango (Breezango tag team)

12. Tyler Breeze (Breezango tag team)

13. Chad Gable

14. Konnor (The Ascension tag team)

15. Viktor (The Ascension tag team)

16. Sunil Singh (I assume his brother Samir Singh will be back with Sunil and Jinder when he returns from his knee injury in a few months. They also don’t list his name on WWE.com as of this morning. Poor Sunil!)

17. Zack Ryder

18. Mojo Rawley

19. Mike Kanellis

The last name is Drew McIntyre, who got called up to the main roster as an ally of Dolph Ziggler.

TJR Thoughts: I’m not going to go that in-depth because I want to wait a day for the Smackdown moves, but what came to mind immediately is that Raw added a lot of upper echelon heels. Names like Owens, Zayn, Corbin, Mahal, Ziggler and McIntyre are all coming in as heels that could potentially be opponents for some of the Raw faces like Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, Seth Rollins and Finn Balor. One or two of those guys could be moved to Smackdown tonight, though. Bobby Roode is the only upper midcard face and even he is better as a heel, so it will be interesting to see how they are all booked.

I thought more women would be moved over, but having Natalya and the Riott Squad make the shift is fine because that’s four of them.

Chad Gable is a sleeper pick as a guy that can potentially break through as a singles wrestler. He’s a shorter guy, though, so maybe it will take a few years for him to get a chance. It will be interesting to see if they book him as a face against a heel Jason Jordan, who is his former tag team partner.

I’m surprised The Usos or The New Day were not moved. I just figured they have wrestled so much that it would happen to help boost the Raw tag team divsion. Nope. No movement in that direction.

There was also one name announced as moving to Smackdown and that’s The Miz, who found out during a promo segment. Daniel Bryan and The Miz had some comments about it on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/mikethemiz/status/986163573079597056

I’m excited about that feud.

I’ll be back later tonight with the Smackdown review and all of the names of the Raw talent moving to Smackdown. My review will not be live, but I hope to get it posted a few hours after Smackdown ends.