AJ Styles is reportedly moving to ‘Monday Night Raw.’ (WWE.com)
A “superstar shake up” will take place in the WWE next week, and we’re now beginning to learn some spoilers about which wrestlers are going to which show.
These new spoilers come courtesy of veteran wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer. He reports on the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio that AJ Styles will be traded to Monday Night Raw.
Some had speculated that Styles might be traded for Roman Reigns, but that is evidently not the case, with Meltzer reporting that Roman Reigns will stay where he is on Monday Night Raw.
In addition, The New Day will be going to SmackDown Live, according to Meltzer.
Beyond these trades, Meltzer speculates that Charlotte will be going to SmackDown Live and Alexa Bliss will be going to Raw, but this is not based on any actual backstage reports.
These changes would all make some degree of sense based on the way that Raw and SmackDown played out this week. AJ Styles declared on SmackDown Live recently that he does not want to move to Raw; but this was also as part of his face turn, and so being moved to another show even when he doesn’t want to go could help the audience sympathize with him more as a guy who was screwed over by the authority.
The New Day going to SmackDown Live, meanwhile, also makes a lot of sense considering the tag team division on team blue has really been struggling lately. Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston and Big E make up one of the most popular WWE tag teams of this decade, and so they would certainly inject some life into SmackDown Live‘s tag team division.
Charlotte going to SmackDown Live would be a logical pick as well, as she’s starting to run out of people to feud with on Raw after a lengthy storyline with Sasha Banks and after losing to Bayley twice, including at WrestleMania. The SmackDown Live women’s division could use some additional talent, too, and Charlotte is arguably the most talented female performer in the WWE right now.
And it makes sense why the WWE would not want to move Roman Reigns away from their flagship show. Although this would certainly help fill the void left by John Cena and AJ Styles on SmackDown, Reigns is still engaged in a feud with Braun Strowman, and it is clearly the company’s plan for him to eventually take on Brock Lesnar. For now, Roman Reigns is expected to fight Braun Strowman at Payback later this month, though this has not been confirmed.
The WWE 2017 superstar shake up will take place next week on Monday Night Raw.