With the road through Wrestlemania complete, it is time start anew tonight as Raw takes place from the newly renovated Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, New York.
WWE chairman Vince McMahon announced that a “Superstar Shakeup” will take place starting on tonight’s show and continue tomorrow night on Smackdown Live.
Also expected on the show is the continuation of the feud between Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman.
There are plenty of questions heading into day one of the “Superstar Shakeup” edition of WWE Raw, but these are the four biggest ones:
1) Who switches brands? This is the million dollar question heading into tonight’s show. At one time, it seemed likely AJ Styles and Reigns would be the key players getting moved to different brands. But, that appeared to have change as McMahon has reportedly changed his mind like he often does. Will be intriguing to be see if any major talent gets moved or if the WWE will play it safe.
2) What type of interaction do we expect between Daniel Bryan and Kurt Angle? The latter was introduced last week as the new General Manager of Raw by Vince McMahon. The interaction between the two GM’s should be just as interesting as what superstars get moved to different brands. Angle and Bryan have quirky personalities that would make for some good television. Would expect them to be adjoined at the hip for pretty much the entire show. If they are doing trades then I’d expect a lot of both the GM’s this evening. It’s a shame fans are extremely unlikely to ever get to see Angle and Bryan in a match as it would no doubt be among the greatest wrestling matches of all-time. Never say never though in the wrestling business.
3) Do Finn Balor and Seth Rollins act like best friends? Last week, Balor returned to Raw after a nearly eight month absence due to a shoulder injury to be Rollins’ partner in a tag team match against Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe after the heel duo viciously attacked original Rollins partner, Chris Jericho. The partnership made little sense as Rollins is the one who caused Balor’s injury at Summerslam which forced him to relinquish the Universal title. Balor and Rollins ended up winning the match but the returning star had a mean glare for his partner after the match. Would make sense for WWE to follow up on this possible friction. Who cares if Balor and Rollins are both babyfaces? One took out the other and forced him to forfeit his championship. But, WWE doesn’t always tell logical stories.
4) What to expect from Reigns and Strowman? All Reigns did on last week’s was soak up the boos from the hostile Orlando crowd in response to “The Big Dog” defeating The Undertaker at Wrestlemania, only giving a five word promo: ‘This is my yard now’. Strowman brought up Reigns during his promo with Brock Lesnar saying he’s going after Lesnar after he takes out Reigns. Strowman needs to be the aggressor in this program and be the one who comes out on top if he’s going to feud with the Universal champion during the summer. Tonight would be a good way to jump start it.
