Monday Night Raw: War Raiders called up, repackaged

The Viking Experience leads the way in weirdness as the WWE shakes up their roster over the next two nights.

It’s the WWE Superstar Shake-Up, taking place on Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live over the next two nights. On Monday in Montreal, the roster shuffled started early, with SmackDown‘s Shane McMahon shuffling off his (rightfully angry) nemesis The Miz to Raw, and Ricochet and Aleister Black being confirmed members of Raw and taking part in an eight-man tag math.

Black and Ricochet were paired with Raw Tag Team Champions Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins against The Revival and the Raw debut of current NXT Tag Champs the War Raiders.

Only, it wasn’t really the War Raiders at all.

The champions, who made their NXT debuts last January, have apparently been repackaged. No longer “Rowe and Hanson,” no longer the “War Raiders,” the team is now called The Viking Experience, the men’s names changed to Ivar and Erik.

Yes, that’s right: The team that put forth a dominant and show-stealing performance just over a week ago at NXT TakeOver: New York and successfully defended their belts against Black and Ricochet have now been called up and completely — and hilariously — revamped, and the reaction isn’t good. The name changes alone could serve to squash the momentum that the former War Raiders had spent the past year-plus building.

The War Raiders already underwent one name change, from formerly being called War Machine during their time with Ring of Honor and New Japan, which had its own awkwardness. But, The Viking Experience? It reeks of the kind of tone-deaf decision making that puts in further relief the contributions of Vince McMahon on the main brands versus those of Triple H in NXT. And what happens to their NXT titles?

And other things come to mind when thinking of the “Viking experience.” Things like:

In more Shake-Up news, 205 Live cruiserweight favorite Cedric Alexander is also headed to Raw, as is Andrade and Zelina Vega, who made their red-brand debut with the latter accompanying the former to take on Intercontinental Champion Finn Balor.

But, yeah. The Viking Experience. Okay, then.