Tri-brand Trade

[Chris Ingersoll]

From Meltzer:

Moving to the Raw roster:
Gail Kim
Alicia Fox
Jack Swagger
Evan Bourne
Mark Henry

Moving to the SmackDown roster:
Matt Hardy
Finlay
The Hart Dynasty of Harry Boy Smith, Tyson Kidd & Natalya

Moving to the ECW roster:
Shelton Benjamin
Goldust
William Regal
Brie & Nikki Bella

So did ECW get gutted of what? There's literally nobody left on that roster now. It's basically just Christian, Dreamer, Benjamin, and Regal in the upper card, with Goldust, Hurricane(?), Burchill, and Ryder occupying the rest of the space. Kozlov will have to take Henry's role as monster.

Moving tag teams around is stupid/pointless if the Unified Champions can defend on any show. On a similar note, why would you move any Diva to ECW? So now there's the Bellas... and Katie Burchill. Yay?

Matt and Jeff didn't need to be on the same show again so soon after being separated.

Just a bunch of WTF all around. The only move that made ANY sense was Benjamin to ECW (he was already on that roster briefly, IIRC), and they took ALL of the reasons why away in the same stroke (presumably to "upgrade" Bourne/Swagger/Harts).

[crimsoncross]

I at first didn't like that they moved several of the key wrestlers from ECW, but then we know that it would happen sooner or later because ECW is a d-fed in the end. I like that Shelton Benjamin, William Regal and Goldust are on ECW and it will still be fun to watch ECW. RAW still pretty much sucks, I do like Mark Henry and Evan Bourne on the brand, but RAW pretty much still sucks in my view. Smackdown once again is not really a must watch for me for some reason.

[Chris Ingersoll]

The guy who reviews Raw on Meltzer's site said that this trade made ECW GM Tiffany look like the most incompetent GM ever, and I kind of have to agree: she trades away SIX of her biggest stars (plus Natalya) and gets basically only Shelton Benjamin and Regal in return; I hope Goldust will surprise me, but the Bellas are pretty much dead weight on that show. Shelton's good, but he's not that good, especially when you're trading away most of the guys for him to be good with. Regal for Finlay is basically an even trade.

Meanwhile Smackdown lost only Shelton and Gail Kim (plus Alicia Fox, big deal) and gets the entire Hart Dynsaty plus Finlay and Matt Hardy? Teddy's no sucka.

[crimsoncross]

In the end they didn't need to do these trades, they couldn't come up with new feuds with the talent they had on those rosters before this week...

[Big Bri]

The things that Swagger and Henry did with Orton were pretty creative. It's be nice to see Swagger join Legacy in the role Orton served in Evolution. Although that wouldn't go along with everyone in Legacy being a second or third generation guy - but if it worked, who cares about that?

During the first hour of RAW I mentioned to my wife that the show is nearly unbearable at this point, but then they at least freshened things up with Henry pinning Orton clean. I'm no Henry fan but at least this will put someone else in the picture other than Triple H.

[Chris Ingersoll]

Jun 30, 2009 17:19:40 GMT -5 Big Bri said:

The things that Swagger and Henry did with Orton were pretty creative. It's be nice to see Swagger join Legacy in the role Orton served in Evolution. Although that wouldn't go along with everyone in Legacy being a second or third generation guy - but if it worked, who cares about that?

Another suggestion I've seen and liked more was that Orton dumps Rhodes and Dibiase and instead teams up with Swagger and Miz as a bunch of arrogant douches.

[Big Bri]

Jul 1, 2009 10:55:11 GMT -5 Chris Ingersoll said:

Jun 30, 2009 17:19:40 GMT -5 Big Bri said:

The things that Swagger and Henry did with Orton were pretty creative. It's be nice to see Swagger join Legacy in the role Orton served in Evolution. Although that wouldn't go along with everyone in Legacy being a second or third generation guy - but if it worked, who cares about that?

Another suggestion I've seen and liked more was that Orton dumps Rhodes and Dibiase and instead teams up with Swagger and Miz as a bunch of arrogant douches.

Yeah, I could see that, especially because I think the plan is to turn DiBiase face around the time Marine 2 comes out.

[Chris Ingersoll]

Having his old man on as "Guest Host" next week couldn't hurt, I'm sure.