20 Reasons Why WWE Superstar Shake-Up 2019 Was An Absolute Mess
EC3 gets buried, tag teams split, and the Raw women's division is destroyed.
This year's WWE Superstar Shake-Up was simultaneously the best and worst of the company, resulting in episodes of Raw and SmackDown that, at times, resembled complete trainwrecks.
Learning how to laugh at this nonsense is critical to enjoying the modern WWE product. Take it seriously and you'll drown yourself in a sea of negativity, consumed by the idea that Vince McMahon' is the most incompetent television writer in the world. It's perverse, and it'd be nice if the company served up more content we can enjoy earnestly, but the dumpster fire is often just as entertaining.
It'd be wrong not to cut Raw some slack after travel issues seemingly forced widescale last-minute rewrites across the show, though its three hours were still riddled with nonsense. SmackDown was less shambolic, as you'd expect from WWE's most consistent weekly show, but far from immune.
The company's vast talent pool feels suitably refreshed after a series of trades that sent the likes of AJ Styles, Roman Reigns, and Finn Balor to pastures new, where they'll enjoy all kinds of exciting storytelling possibilities. We can't fault the destination, even if the journey frequently veered towards so-bad-it's-good territory...
20. The Feud MUST Continue!
Shane McMahon and The Miz's WrestleMania brawl was a shambles. It was exactly the kind of thing that this column was devised to cover, with its perfect cacophony of bullsh*t combining to create one of the best so-bad-it's-good matches this company has produced in years. For the love God, Shane spent a minute adjusting George Mizanin's boxing stance... and he won by getting suplexed off of a very high thing. It was mental.
The good/bad (delete as appropriate) news is that the Banter Era's foremost banter feud continued in Raw's first segment. Miz was unveiled as Raw's first Shake-Up acquisition and ambushed 'The Best In The World' from behind, getting himself bloodied in the inevitable Shane fightback, but ultimately standing tall to close.
Remember when WrestleMania was the point at which all ongoing WWE storylines concluded? Shane and Miz apparently don't. Here's to another trainwreck pay-per-view match or two, culminating in Big George nutting Shane with his "potato face."