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Report: United States Champion Samoa Joe Likely Moving to WWE Raw, More Superstar Shake-Up Moves Coming

By John Canton • Published 17th April 2019
TJR Wrestling

There was an interesting move on Smackdown last night when Finn Balor showed up with the Intercontinental Championship as a new Smackdown wrestler as part of the Superstar Shake-up. That led to fans wondering what that meant about WWE’s other secondary title, the US Championship held by Samoa Joe.

In an update on that situation, it appears as though Joe and the US Title that he currently holds is going to be on Raw. Here’s how the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer explained it:

“Samoa Joe is going to be on RAW. That hasn’t been announced. He was gonna be announced on the show, but since he was sent to the doctor or whatever — taken off the show. They were going to announce that last [Monday] night.”

It’s unknown how they might reveal Joe on Raw, but he was so sick on Monday that they had to re-write his segment and keep him off the show.

On last week’s Smackdown, Joe got into a brawl with Braun Strowman, who is staying on Raw, so that could be Joe’s first rivalry back on the Raw brand where he was before.

There are also expected to be more names moving to Raw and Smackdown later in the week. John Pollock of Post Wrestling reported: “I’m told there are more names being added to RAW and that will probably be revealed later this week on the website and social media.”

TJR Thoughts: It’s possible that WWE will simply announce Joe is on Raw later in the week and have him show up on Monday. They could also do the surprise thing where Joe attacks somebody on Raw (such as Strowman) and he can announce he’s on the Raw roster that way.

As for more moves being announced later in the week, that is consistent with what WWE has done in the past. Perhaps Xavier Woods will get his way and his buddy Tyler Breeze will get moved to Smackdown.

Good luck with that.