The WWE’s annual Superstar Shake-up will take place on this week’s Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live,sending a handful of wrestlers from one brand to the other for the coming year. Very little has been reported about what will happen at this year’s Shake-up, but it does have a number of twists the previous iterations didn’t have. Thanks to numerous NXT call-ups in the past few months, there are currently eight Superstars that have yet to be assigned a specific brand — EC3, Ricochet, Aleister Black, Nikki Cross, Lacey Evans, Lars Sullivan and Heavy Machinery. There’s also the looming television deal with FOX, which will see WWE move SmackDown Live to Friday night’s on the FOX Network that could potentially make it the highest-rated show in the company and demand the promotion’s top talent.
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WWE.com released its hypothetical picks for the Shake-up over the weekend, which could give a hint as to what the WWE has in mind for this week. While some picks seemed to make sense (sending both Braun Strowman and Sasha Banks to SmackDown Live), a few choices were a bit more bold. For starters, the website pitched the idea of breaking up The New Day fresh off Kofi Kingston’s WWE Championship win by sending Xavier Woods to Raw.
“… if The New Day had to be separated in the Superstar Shake-up — not that it’s something we’d ever want to see under normal circumstances — we think Xavier Woods would shine on his own on Monday Night Raw,” WWE.com writer James Wortman wrote.
On top of the eight NXT call-ups looking for a home roster, the list also pitched sending all four members of the Undisputed Era faction to Monday Night Raw.
“Like sharks encircling prey, Undisputed ERA have conquered and devoured almost everything in their path on the black-and-gold brand,” Ralph Bristout wrote. “A move to Raw would provide these outlaws fresh fish and a new environment to expand their dominance.”
Finally, the article pitched sending Roman Reigns over to The Blue Brand. Putting the company’s No. 1 star on SmackDown Live is not unheard of, but it would be the biggest indication that the show will be treated as the A-show once the move to FOX occurs.
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