10 Best WWE Roster "Shake-Up" Moves
8. John Cena To Raw (2005)
This one's dicey if you want to get technical about Cena's crowd reception, which veered into the negative shortly after his arrival. It can't be argued that Cena is WWE's biggest star of the modern age, caustic response at the arenas or not. Raw is the flagship WWE brand, despite the nominal parity it shared with SmackDown, and Cena was the best choice to be the face of the A-show.
Both Cena and Batista ascended as World Champions that year, but as Cena was eight years younger than Big Dave, it made the most sense to position him more viably. Batista was a fine-enough choice to captain the SmackDown ship, while Cena was ideal for the more-watched Raw. Merchandise numbers firmly crushing the boo-birds would back up that sentiment.