The third annual WWE Superstar Shake-Up is set to take place and this shake-up helps determine the direction of each brand. For the past couple of years, the shift of stars from one brand to the other. As much as we would like for there to be even trades in the shake-up, the fact of the matter is that one brand always benefits more than the other.
Take the first Superstar Shake-Up for example. Up to that point, SmackDown Live was generally the much better show from a quality standpoint. The superstars who were on the blue brand were thriving and the women, despite having a shallower roster, found themselves in the midst of much better storylines and character progression.
The locker room was like a unit and there was even a sense of competitiveness. However, post-WrestleMania, a lot of the top names on SmackDown that made the brand great again had been moved over to RAW – reminiscent of the old brand split, where SmackDown stars would be moved over to RAW because they were thriving so much.
History looked set to repeat itself, as the quality of RAW improved somewhat, while SmackDown suffered quite a bit. An extensive Jinder Mahal WWE Championship reign certainly didn’t help the cause. The magic that SmackDown had clearly disappeared, but 2018 saw another major change.
This time, WWE seemed like they felt the need to make up to SmackDown for a year’s worth of low-quality programming. So they moved over a lot of top RAW stars to SmackDown, with the tag team division, in particular, seeing a drastic improvement. However, the issue with the latter was that in order to do so, they had to gut RAW of its best tag teams and that was the division that took the biggest hit in 2018 on RAW.
Rather than established tag teams, it was temporary teams that were dominating the title scene and winning the RAW Tag Team Championship. The division became a clear afterthought for WWE, with the title changing hands essentially every two months or so. As for the women on SmackDown Live, it was really two of them who managed to set the company on fire.
It was Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair. Renewing their rivalry, Becky Lynch’s heel turn saw the opposite effect as to what was intended, with her becoming the most popular star in the company. She took the ball and ran with it so much so that even Vince McMahon, who never pushed her more than anything other than “Charlotte’s friend” began to look to her as an example of someone who took the ball and ran with it.
Her quick rise to the top saw her become SmackDown Women’s Champion again and the impact that she had left WWE with no choice but to make her main event WrestleMania, a feat that nobody would have ever imagined. The RAW Women’s division on the other hand, took a completely new direction, with the entire division being centered solely around Ronda Rousey. She found herself on the mountaintop in no time and proved to be a great fighting champion up until she lost it at WrestleMania.
With Becky Lynch becoming the first-ever double champion, the direction of the women’s division is uncertain, but one hope that they don’t, in fact, unify the titles and division, unless they’re planning to keep the women in one division and the tag teams in another. This was an idea that many considered and thought to be a good idea. However, the brand split has undeniably created a lot more opportunities for women who wouldn’t regularly get pushed as much.
Moreover, the biggest thing that will factor into this Superstar Shake-Up will be the FOX deal that begins this October for SmackDown Live. While there have been rumors going about with WWE wanting to end the brand split, the FOX deal will make this very unlikely. The brand split has potential for higher ratings and WWE may want to add some massive star power to the blue brand to give it a boost.
This hopefully doesn’t mean gutting RAW altogether, but it’s safe to assume that SmackDown will be the priority at the start. It’s very likely that the names who will switch brands will do so with the FOX deal in mind. So despite RAW benefiting one year and SmackDown the next, the third edition may very well see SmackDown benefit once again.
It may be the brand for a while to come in WWE.
