7 Ups And 5 Downs For WWE Raw Superstar Shakeup

More new faces join the Raw roster, while one says goodbye.

Jinder Mahal Raw
WWE

If you look at the Raw roster right now, before SmackDown airs, it looks like a heavily stacked group of superstars. Of course, that will change after Tuesday night, but for one evening, Raw was overloaded with talent and provided a solid show.

We saw the arrival of several quality wrestlers, including Bobby Roode, Dolph Ziggler, Drew McIntyre and even Baron Corbin. We also saw Jinder Mahal bring the United States Championship with him to Raw, only to lose it moments after arriving. We saw Natalya show up and rekindle a friendship with Ronda Rousey, which paid dividends later on. And we saw Breezango take it to The Bar.

However, Raw wasn’t without it’s down moments. Some of the debuts on Raw were less than spectacular, with Corbin not even getting on camera, but merely being mentioned with a short promo video. Ember Moon didn’t get a huge rub in her second Raw match. And Sasha Banks and Bayley continued to flounder.

Still, Raw was highly watchable Monday night, and if the new members of the roster provide a shot in the arm for the brand and create new and fresh matchups and rivalries, then so be it. We’ll gladly enjoy it.

With that said, let’s find out what worked and what didn’t. Let’s get to it…

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.