4 WWE Superstars who are surprisingly staying on SmackDown Live
The 2019 WWE Superstar Shake-Up featured 17 roster moves on Monday’s episode of Raw, and the two-night event will continue on Tuesday when more names are drafted to SmackDown Live.
The following Superstars have already been confirmed as Raw recruits: AJ Styles, The Miz, Ricochet, Aleister Black, Erik (Rowe), Ivar (Hanson), Andrade, Zelina Vega, Rey Mysterio, Lars Sullivan, Jimmy Uso, Jey Uso, Naomi, EC3, Lacey Evans, Eric Young, Cedric Alexander.
This year’s Shake-Up is also giving Superstars from 205 Live and NXT the chance to move to the main roster, with former Cruiserweight champion Cedric Alexander joining Raw and War Raiders’ Hanson & Rowe (now known as The Viking Experience’s Ivar & Erik) also moving to Monday nights.
As for SmackDown Live, several names who were expected to move to Raw during Monday’s episode have been confirmed to be staying put on Tuesdays for the foreseeable future.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at four Superstars/teams who are surprisingly set to remain on SmackDown Live.
#4 Samoa Joe
Samoa Joe became a main-roster title holder for the first time when he won a Fatal 4-Way match in March to be crowned the new United States champion. Four weeks later, he successfully defended his title by defeating Rey Mysterio in just 60 seconds at WrestleMania 35.
Heading into the Shake-Up, many people predicted that “The Samoan Submission Machine” would return to Raw, where he previously spent 15 months between January 2017 and April 2018, along with his United States Championship. That would also have meant that Finn Balor and the Intercontinental Championship would head in the other direction to SmackDown Live.
However, while Balor lost against new Raw recruit Andrade in one of the featured matches of Monday’s episode, there was no sign of Joe, which presumably means that the Irishman will not be moving to SmackDown Live in a straight swap.
The Wrestling Observer is reporting that Joe is “very sick with a bad case of the flu”, so it is possible that his illness might have altered WWE’s plans for the Shake-Up.