Bengaluru, April 17: Last night, the landscape of WWE Raw witnessed change after several stars from Smackdown move to the flagship show's roster. This edition marked the first night of the Superstar Shakeup of 2018 and the very first draft of the show was Jinder Mahal.

As a welcome to the brand, Jinder was immediately forced to defend his United States Championship by Raw GM Kurt Angle in the opening segment of the show. Jeff Hardy accepted the challenge to set up an impromptu matchup. The babyface superstar won the contest via clean pinfall to become the United States Champion and a WWE Grand Slam Champion, as well.

Just after the segment, The Riott Squad pounced on Sasha Banks and Bayley to announce their arrival on the flagship brand. There was more in stored for the women’s division, as the most veteran current female roster member, Natalya joined the WWE Raw roster.

Quite surprisingly, she acted as a babyface aligning with Ronda Rousey, which now makes it interesting to see whether this characteristic will be retained for her or not.

Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn were a must-inclusion on WWE Raw roster since they were already fired from the Smackdown roster. Apparently, Kurt Angle did not hire them. Rather, it was Stephanie McMahon, who gave a written order to hire them on her show. In that same segment the GM let us know that The Miz will be going to Smackdown Live.

A mega return was witnessed on the show when Drew McIntyre appeared from NXT. He teamed up with Dolph Ziggler which is believed to rejuvenate the career of both the superstars, at this point. Another tag team that was included on the roster was the innovator of the Fashion Files, Breezango.



In the last segment of WWE Raw, it was revealed that Baron Corbin and the Bobby Roode were the last two names that got traded from Smackdown to the red brand. Apart from these televised brand shifts, there more such changes on the roster as 19 superstars fell under the category and the list is as follows:

Jinder Mahal (with Sunil Singh)

The Riott Squad (Ruby Riott, Sarah Logan, and Liv Morgan)

Kevin Owens

Sami Zayn

Breezango (Fandango and Tyler Breeze)

Natalya

Zack Ryder

Mojo Rawley

Drew McIntyre

Baron Corbin

Bobby Roode

Mike Kanellis

Chad Gable

The Ascension (Konnor and Viktor)