Is the WWE roster the strongest it has been for a while now?

The Volt

Watching Raw last night, I was struck by the quality of characters on the show. Despite the storywriting still leave a lot to be desired, the show seems to have moved up a level in terms of personnel.

Raw:
John Cena
The Miz
CM Punk
Del Rio
R-Truth
Dolph Ziggler
Kevin Nash
Rey Mysterio
Alex Riley
Kofi Kingston

Smackdown:
Big Show
Christian
Cody Rhodes
Mark Henry
Randy Orton
Sheamus
Wade Barrett
Daniel Bryan
Sin Cara

Thoughts? The building of the characters like Rhodes, Barrett and Ziggler has been a pleasure to watch

CMpunked

Yeah i suppose it is. When you dont have a constant revolving door system going on with people being lunatics..


Leaving due to stupid decisions and other wrestlers coming in who have spent feck all time in FCW only to last for a few month and then get sent back again.

My question is if this roster has been the most constant roster we have seen in a while.

rovert

Definitely a fan of the roster depth.

I think if you drill down further to the B-show crew you find a lot of good uns too: Tatsu, Tyson Kidd, Trent Baretta, Usos, Galloway etc.

I really do miss late 2010/early 2011 era Superstars with Masters having really good matches.

Also WHY IS JTG STILL EMPLOYED?

Pentecost

Is he pleasuring Michael Hayes too?!

jaykhunter

You'll be even happier in 4 years when a bunch of those guys are regular PPV main-eventers! If only WWE would use Cena (and especially Orton) more effectively we could get there a lot sooner instead of pulling teeth.

But i'm really happy to see the growth of Cody and Ziggler in particular. Ziggler especially, he's been great for the last 2 years now, working with the best wrestlers the non-main event has to offer.

takamichinoku

The roster's finally beginning to look a bit stronger, but I don't think it's quite there yet, was absolutely in the gutter at the point Edge had to retire IMO.
Punk, Ziggler, Truth and a pretty fantastic run from Rey pretty much saved Raw for a while, Smackdown has had some trouble working out just what to do with Orton and Sheamus but getting Mark Henry over as a dominant heel has bought them a good deal of time and things are piecing together now with Barrett, Rhodes and Danielson.

Really though, they're a few years late and have wasted the chance to have some pretty big names put over new guys before the most of them disappeared. Taker in particular was quite a negative to have around regularly.

Machismo Fan

In terms of pure talent it's up there, in terms of headliners it's the worst it's ever been.

MitchKoobski

I was just thinking the same the other day. It's rare that I get excited to watch more than 2 or 3 superstars.

However atm, in order of preference, theres

1. Cody Rhodes
2. CM Punk
3. Dolph Ziggler
4. R Truth
5. Sheamus
6. Del Rio
7. The Miz
8. Daniel Bryan
9. Wade Barrett
10. Zack Ryder

Bounty Hunter

Its not the strongest roster but its a fresh roster that can get stronger in the future with new stars doing things that is atleast new ground with them and I think thats what most of us want to see in the long run.

Also for the first time most of the wrestlers people on her tune in to see are actually getting somewhat of a push. Mitch's list above of his order of preference are pretty much all getting a good push now (Truth aside who had been).

Also it seems like a roster in transition where people who traditionally may have gotten stuck in the mid card because of their size can main event. There are a few obvious exceptions but with Punk, Bryan, Cody, Ziggler etc all getting pushed it seems that again the technical wrestlers who can work a mic and that we want to see pushed will get more chances because they will have people they know they can work their style of matches with in the big matches.

The WWE screw up a lot but atm im interested to see how they push superstars because they are pushig the right ones even if they arent always doing it in the fashion id like

Cactus Colm

Yeah, it certainly looks to me like the roster is very strong at the moment. Glad they finally remembered how to push their monsters, and it's good to see Mark Henry getting a chance with the title, and doing rather well with it. Might be room to establish another couple of main eventers ... and obviously there's no tag division. But I suppose a lot of the new wrestlers have had a chance to establish themselves and firm up the lower and mid cards.