WWE Smack Down Vs. Raw 2008 - Roster

Roster

ECW made its first appearance in the series, as its superstars Tommy Dreamer, CM Punk, Elijah Burke and Kelly Kelly made their debuts. Cryme Tyme, MVP and Ashley made their first appearance as playable superstars and diva. Kenny Dykstra, Marcus Cor Von, Sandman and Sabu also made their first and only WWE game appearances. This is also Michelle McCool's first WWE game appearance since WWE Smackdown! vs. Raw 2006. This is also Bobby Lashley, Gregory Helms, and Torrie Wilson's last WWE game, as well as Booker T and Ric Flair as active wrestlers, although Gregory Helms' alternative ego, "The Hurricane" is an unplayable character on the Road To WrestleMania storylines for Christian & Rey Mysterio in WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011. Mick Foley is also a playable character in WWE '12 available as DLC in Early 2012. This was also the first time that Jeff Hardy was a playable character since Shut Your Mouth, the last time John Hennigan appeared as Johnny Nitro, he appears in games after this one as John Morrison. This is the last game to feature Randy Orton with his Legend Killer gimmick. This also the first game to feature John Cena without his rapping character. This is also the last game to feature the trapizoid Raw Titantron Stage, the SmackDown! Fist Stage and the old ECW stage but now named as ECW One Night Stand in this game.

This is the only game in the series to feature the 'ECW Legends' roster. By default, there are only three members of this roster: Sabu, Terry Funk, and Tommy Dreamer. Sandman, however, is on the RAW roster due to his final few WWE appearances being an official part of this brand.

Sergeant Slaughter, Eddie Guerrero and Jim Neidhart were all originally intended to be included as playable legend characters on the PlayStation 2 version of the game. Close to the release of the game, the decision was made to make them exclusive to PlayStation Portable. As a result, the character models for each character were removed from the game. All of their unique moves and entrance animations can still be assigned to other characters within the game. Complete moves sets, entrance videos and announcer introductions remain on the game disc, but can only be accessed via cheat devices.

This is the first game in the series not to feature Chris Benoit after his double murder and suicide in June 2007. All material related to Benoit were removed or made unavailable through normal means, including all versions of crossface and the diving headbutt. However, you could still find an entrance similar to his from WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2007. An empty character space, known as "No Model 03" still has a complete moveset and attributes for Benoit, complete with many of Benoit's unique moves which still remain locked. Like the other removed characters, these can only be accessed via a cheat device.