The specific details for this year’s WWE Draft were revealed Wednesday.
On an episode of the web series WWE Bump, specifics for the upcoming two-night draft were revealed. The event, which will kick off Friday on Smackdown and conclude three days later on Raw, will see many wrestlers move from one brand to another. Along with Raw and Smackdown, the NXT brand will participate in the draft this year as well.
Per the broadcast, a total of 40 picks will take place between the two brands. Sixteen picks will take place on Smackdown, lasting four rounds in total. The majority of the picks will then happen on the second night, with 24 more wrestlers being drafted on Raw. This follows the same format that was used in last year’s draft.
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The biggest change this year will be how the tournament handles drafting current champs.
Champions, except the women’s tag team title holders, won’t be available to draft. This means Damian Priest and Becky Lynch will be staying on Raw, for example.
Holding the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships allows a team to appear on any roster in the promotion. The purpose of drafting the champions will not be to determine where they will go immediately, since they can in theory go anywhere, but instead to decide which roster they will default back to after dropping the belts to another team.
Don’t have a draft if it’s not going to make sense.
Don’t have a brand split if you’re not going to follow it.
Don’t have rankings and w/l records if you’re not going to follow them.
Some things in wrestling have never been done well. Let’s see how this attempt goes…
I don’t know how they mess up so badly. Were the old drafts rubbish? When they use to have GMs doing picks or the lottery I think they once did when John cena moved.
Why did they move away from the format to this weird system that makes no sense
I think the very first one was not bad. But just coming off the NFL draft feels so lame and tired.
Personally I watched the NFL draft and just have no interest with more draft stuff in the same week. Especially a watered down version with bad acting that makes no sense.
I enjoyed the draft when ric flair and Vince were the reps of each brand. The problem is there is no feeling of difference between the two brands. They feel the exact same minus colours, talent go back and forth between shows, and there have been so many drafts that pretty much everyone has been on one of the shows at some point. The only time it feels even remotely cool is when NXT talent are called up, but even that is meh since these guys have had random call ups already (ie. trick, Carmelo etc.)
I’m a fan of Carmelo for example, but why would I feel excited to see him on the main brand when he’s already had matches on raw and smackdown this year. It doesn’t feel as special as it could if they drew a hard line between brands. My guess is the networks push for this BS draft.
I also want to add, in sports a draft is a bunch of players who have never been in the big leagues being picked by 30+ teams. It all feels fresh.
The WWE draft is a bunch of performers who have wrestled on all brands for the most part, being chosen by 2 entities. It’s just a stupid concept to do every year. I would much prefer no more drafts, and trades to be factored in once or twice a year. You could do storylines where if a gm is fighting with a talent, the gm trades them. Or a performer could be an ass to the gm and demand a trade etc. Look at the mileage they go out of the Jey jump to Raw, much more then this.
In my opinion, they do need some sort of kayfabe event to split the rosters and not just do it behind close doors. Hence, the draft. But I don’t think there’s a good way to do it that makes both kayfabe and real world sense.
And they really haven’t done a good job of using it to build people up. The last one I can think of that was effective was Finn Balor getting drafted to Raw. They immediately strapped a rocket to his back and did it well. Then he got hurt, so who knows how that would’ve gone.
Did Jey Uso get anything from being the first pick on Raw? And that’s probably the only pick from last night that anybody will remember, and not for good reason.
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