Report: WWE’s Current Hierarchy of WWE Raw and SmackDown Stars, Including Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes

WWE has an internal roster that ranks the top wrestlers on both the Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown. The list is never officially given out, though insiders often manage to get their hands on updated versions and see where certain wrestlers fall on the pecking order. Mike Johnson of PWInsider posted the latest update on Tuesday, which lists the top three babyface for Raw as Bobby Lashley, Cody Rhodes and AJ Styles and the top heels as Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Edge and Damian Priest. It’s worth noting that, despite being the Unified WWE Universal Champion, Roman Reigns is only listed on the SmackDown roster (obviously as its top heel).

And in what could be a sign for Reigns’ next opponent, Drew McIntyre is listed as the top babyface on SmackDown. “The Scottish Warrior” has been rumored to be the next man up to challenge “The Tribal Chief” and was on the winning end of a six-man tag match against The Bloodline after this week’s Raw.

The list also shows just how highly WWE thinks of Rhodes fresh off his arrival at WrestleMania 38. “The American Nightmare” has been teasing a match with Reigns for the Undisputed title ever since he beat Seth Rollins, though he’ll be challenging “The Visionary” to another match at WrestleMania Backlash next month. 

“…When I left here, Roman Reigns was on top. And I think Roman Reigns was experiencing some of the negative byproduct of being on top. Some of the pushback that a new face, a new individual [deals with],” Rhodes said on The Bump last week. “But the thing that makes a champion in any company is consistency. And when he said ‘Dallas, Texas, acknowledge me’ and whether they’re supposed to boo, cheer, whatever it might be, and they acknowledged him. That’s what, you want to know a term that is really overused in what we do, is over.

“…He has truly gotten over via consistency and via hard work. What he has going now with Paul Heyman and [The Usos],” Rhodes added. “I don’t want to use this word because I don’t want to sound like… he’s an intimidating presence. I just look forward to obviously, again, it exists. There’s a match out there that is likely the match that exists out there. But before the matches, you’ve got to cross paths in some capacity and we haven’t yet, and I look forward to that.”