WWE Superstar Shakeup 2019: Full Predictions For Call-Ups, Trades
By Tom Colohue
SmackDown to Raw – Shinsuke Nakamura and Rusev
Both Shinsuke Nakamura and Rusev have been pushed on SmackDown Live. Neither of them have really hit the heights expected of them. Now they’re a tag team; two very physical bruisers in a bloated tag division. A move would help them as well as helping the tag division in general.
Rusev and Nakamura could offer a lot to Raw. Individually, both would be good competitors for the mid card, competing with Reigns and Rollins at the top without really threatening much. I would imagine Rusev could be strong competition for Braun Strowman too. Certainly it would be quite the moment if Rusev was able to slam the monster among men.
When it comes to the tag division, both men could dominate the less physical and more technical Raw division. Roode and Gable, Hawkins and Ryder and Black and Richochet are essentially on top on Raw. That’s not a strong division at all and could do with a real injection of quality.
The big down side in all of this is that, when you look at the Raw tag division without The Revival, how many actual teams are there? SmackDown is filled with real teams but Raw is lacking that. Rusev and Nakamura began to show some real dynamic team work at WrestleMania. They could present the answer.
Would they be straight to the championships? Probably. It depends on when former champions and forgotten men Authors of Pain return. Rusev and Nakamura might be the only men on the roster who can legitimately compete with them physically. Slamming big dudes might just be Rusev’s next big gimmick.