WWE Raw – April 22, 2019 (Review)

It was a night of trades, swaps, switches and roundabouts on Raw last week, as wrestlers were frantically shuffled between WWE’s red and blue brands. Yep, we were told, it was the ONE night a year when WWE’s stars were given the opportunity to move between Raw and SmackDown, setting the scene for the coming year. And while the night as a whole was somewhat underwhelming, at least we could take some solace from the fact that WWE clearly had a vision of how they intended using their reshuffled roster moving forward.

How were each of these trades decided? Who knows. On what basis did wrestlers change shows? It’s anyone’s guess. How long would this new allocation last?

One week.

So last Monday’s show was really much ado about nothing then, it seems. Oh well, at least nobody had their names needlessly changed. Just ask The Viking Exp – I mean Raiders. Oh, for goodness sake!

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting WWE’s version of long-term storytelling.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwcrSr0lonL/

That’s right, just seven days after the annual Superstar Shake-up, Raw decided to reverse course on a number of the moves made a week ago.

Cesaro and Samoa Joe moved to the red brand, while Andrade, Zelina Vega and Aleister Black returned in the opposite direction. It was all a rather confounding, inauspicious start to Monday night, and seemed to highlight the lack of foresight by WWE. If you only have one reshuffle every year, surely you should know not only which wrestlers are moving where but also what they’ll be doing once they get there.

Unfortunately WWE doesn’t appear to look ahead much beyond the night before it. And seemingly, the plan for last night was to get a few pieces in place for Money in the Bank, which is now just four weeks away. So with another pay-per-view on the horizon, and a Universal Title challenger to crown, let’s delve into what happened on last night’s Raw.

• review
• RAW
• Money in the Bank
• wwe

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