WWE Raw: Results, Highlights, Analysis, and Grades for April 16

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A Little Shake, and a Little Bake

Raw General Manager Kurt Angle opens the show with a huge smile on his face. My smile disappeared pretty darn quick, though, because Sunil Singh comes down to announce Jinder Mahal is joining the Raw brand. Ugh.

Interestingly, Mahal was the first Raw superstar to head over to the Blue Team during last year’s Superstar Shake-up. But I’m upset about this for what I can see coming by the time tomorrow night ends. There’s next to no chance that both the United States Champion and Intercontinental Champ will be on the same show. So we’re just counting the seconds until Seth Rollins goes bye bye.

Jinder is clearly playing the role of cocky, elitist heel. He complains about traveling in an SUV, as opposed to a limo. Fair enough, Jinder — I drive an SUV, so it’s clearly not for the elite. And the Modern Day Maharaja proceeds to lambaste the entire Raw roster. He says he’s better than everyone, and they should all know it.

This leads to Kurt Angle instituting what I believe is the first-ever involuntary United States Open Challenge, because according to the GM, Jinder has to back up his words. The challenge is answered by Jeff Hardy, and we actually get a match within the first 10 minutes of Raw. I guess they really are shaking things up tonight!