Superstar Shake Up – One Week Later

There were a lot of instant reactions to the Superstar Shake Up last week.  I figured it would be best to wait a week and see how it shakes out first, so here’s what I think so far: 

RAW

I’m fine with the middle and bottom rows. Alexa Bliss has already shaken up the women’s division in a good way, and Mickie James is a good veteran to have around on either side. Hopefully Apollo Crews will get another shot at doing something,but he still needs a personality transplant, stat. Slater & Rhyno have done all they can on Smackdown so moving them is fine, too. Who cares about Curt Hawkins either way?

The top row bothers me. Bray Wyatt and The Miz were killing it on Smackdown and I don’t see how they get that chance on Raw with so many people ahead of them already.  Dean Ambrose I’m mostly ok with but the fact that he and Miz are already reprising their Smackdown feud screams ‘we got nothing new for you guys to do’. And Bray looks to be fodder to get Finn Balor over…..really?  

I guess maybe they want to establish a better midcard since so many guys (Seth, Roman, Braun, and soon Balor) are fixated on the Universal Title.  That’s fine in the short run for Dean but Bray was just World Champion on Smackdown and Miz had everything lined up for a World Title program on Smackdown, and now that’s gone.  We’ll see how it all plays out but I’m not feeling this right now.

Smackdown 

On the contrary, the Smackdown side is all good.  Adding Kevin Owens is never a bad thing. Sami Zayn gets out of his RAW limbo and hopefully so does Rusev.  New Day were quickly running out of gas on RAW so a trip over to Smackdown brings some new opportunities.  Lana will get to work her way into the Women’s division without getting buried, and the Colons have already jumpstarted their career just by coming and shedding that awful Shining Stars gimmick.

Then you have Charlotte and Jinder Mahal. I said before that either she or Sasha Banks needed to switch shows, and I think they made the right choice here.  Charlotte walking in like she already owns the place and acting like everyone should bow down just because is the start of something really big in my opinion, and will make all the ladies there look better by association. Jinder on the other hand has been given a shocking opportunity of a lifetime and has done well with it so far.

If Jinder is able to parlay this into something bigger that will cement Smackdown as the land of opportunity it’s been billed as by Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan.  Hell, if it just results in a better character for him going foward that’s a win.  One more guy you can sell is always a good thing.  We’ll see if he can take advantage of the chance he’s been given. 

So the verdict for now is that Smackdown is the early winner.  We’ll see how it shakes out in the long run.