WWE 2019 Draft Discussion Thread (spoilers)

General
1

Starting this thread early Friday as the list of celebrities set to appear is just insane and hilarious.

I mean where else do you get Margaret Josephs and Melissa Gorga of “Real Housewives of New Jersey” and Michael Vick and Peter Schrager — FOX NFL Kickoff coming together to draft WWE superstars. This is some weird Universe we live in.

Also, wanted to add this USA Today link and as you’ll see, a very special shout out by USA today to a guest tweet (hint, its John): https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/10/2019-wwe-draft-rules-available-stars-start-time-how-to-watch

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The stars will be out for the WWE Draft.

Fourteen-time MLB All-Star and FOX analyst Alex Rodriguez, “Saturday Night Live’s” Michael Che and Colin Jost of “Weekend Update” segments, “Mr. Robot’s” Christian Slater, “NFL on FOX’s” Joe Buck and Pro Football Hall of Famer Troy Aikman, and “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer are among the celebrities set to take part.

The WWE Draft will determine the rosters of Raw and SmackDown. It begins tomorrow on Friday Night SmackDown at 8 ET/5 PT on FOX and continues Monday on Raw at 8/7 C on USA Network.

Additional personalities scheduled to appear include:

  • Kevin Burkhardt and Frank Thomas — FOX MLB analysts

  • Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Jimmy Johnson and Tony Gonzalez — FOX NFL Sunday

  • Ronde Barber, Charles Davis, Chris Spielman and Daryl Johnston — FOX NFL analysts

  • Charissa Thompson, Michael Vick and Peter Schrager — FOX NFL Kickoff

  • Rob Stone, Brady Quinn, Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart and Urban Meyer — Big Noon Kickoff

  • Joel Klatt — FOX College Football analyst

  • Dulé Hill of USA’s “Psych” and “Suits”

  • James Roday of “Psych”

  • Marcus Lemonis of “The Profit”

  • Margaret Josephs and Melissa Gorga of “Real Housewives of New Jersey”

  • Rodney Harrison and Chris Simms — Football Night in America

  • Rebecca Lowe, Robbie Mustoe and Kyle Martino — Premier League Live

Below is the full list of WWE Draft rules:

  • Over 70 Superstars, as well as tag teams, are eligible for selection in this year’s WWE Draft

  • SmackDown will draft 30 Superstars, and Raw will select another 41 Superstars

  • Since SmackDown is a two-hour show and Raw is a three-hour show, for every two picks SmackDown makes, Raw will receive three

  • Tag teams will count as one pick unless FOX or USA Network specifically wants to pick only one Superstar from the team

  • Any undrafted Superstars will immediately be declared free agents and able to sign with the brand of their choosing

2

Mike Vick, should totally announce the Roman Reigns pick. That would be classy :crazy_face:

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@Breng77 answering this from the News thread to this one…if Becky and Roman aren’t 1 & 2 immediately then this immediately becomes silly. So does Roman beat Seth (lol, after Seth was protected last Sunday) so Fox gets the first pick…takes Becky or Roman…and then Raw & Heyman get the Fiend. and Becky/Roman both end up on Fox.

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I could totally see the Fiend going #1 if Seth wins. But I think he stays on Raw so definitely could see him going ahead of Roman. But I think they will want Becky #1 and have her cut a promo.

5

Wouldn’t Michael Vick pick AJ Styles?

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6

If Becky and Roman both go to FOX which I suspect is happening, they can’t let Raw pick first and Fiend is pretty much the only answer for who goes to Raw between those picks.

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Also of note they say no NXT stars but the Street Profits are in the Draft. Also god the bottom of these lists is really a “who cares” of WWE talent.

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I can see them splitting up The OC for no reason at all.

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Looks like the O.C. is a Package deal but who knows

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@WWEonFOX Twitter asked which stars should go to NXT…so it took 4 weeks, and 2 weeks of head-to-head vs AEW before they decided to do that…so F’n predictable

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The thing about picks is how they will handle Raw getting by 3 picks for every one 2 SD picks.
Is it 1 SD 1 Raw 1 SD 2 RAW?

12

Interesting some omissions from the draft.
Women: Nia Jax, Ruby Riot, Naomi

Men : Usos, Matt Hardy.

Also interesting that Sami Zayn is 100% a manager at this point as he is attached to Shinsuke.

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I guess some of those are injured. Is Naomi injured or just drunk?

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Some are but I though McIntyre was injured as well and he is on there. And Naomi May just be away with the USOs right now.

It would never happen, but when I look at the roster I really kind of want WWE to have one show with all the women and the other show with all the tag teams.

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Unless each brand has a budget, why would you only want a part of a faction/Tag Team considering they count as 1 pick.

Also if champions are in play, wouldn’t you pick whoever has a title at each earliest opportunity.

Considering Raw and Smackdown has 2 singles titles, a women’s and a Tag Title, it would make more sense to have said,:

Anyone who has a brand specific title automatically stays on that brand.

I’m guessing NXT will be bidding for any Free Agents.

In reality, a Draft should be a relatively simple process, For WWE, it’s a case of how complicated to we won’t to make it

16

Keeping title holders on brand lessens then big reactions for top names switching sides. You lose out on Becky, Seth, Brock, and Charlotte. I feel like if some of those names don’t move the draft isn’t that exciting.

17

This is hopefully not a naive question but , this draft isn’t a real draft is it? I mean, they’ve had people mixing it up between the two shows for a while right? And so now they won’t cross after this?

Honestly I sort of thought this was just gonna be a way to move champions to smackdown without people thinking it was cause Fox gave them money.

I just don’t feel like there’s actual consequences because they don’t fight each other, like sports teams do. I don’t have a history of watching WWE over the last 15 years or so. Just started a couple years ago.

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I mean it will be presented as a draft, but largely it is just a means to shuffle the talent on both shows, and supposedly after this there will be a hard split between the shows. I’m sure though that USA and Fox had certain stars that they wanted on their network.

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I’m really looking forward to this draft. With two different networks now and so many comments about it, I think for at least a decent amount of time we will finally see two distinct different shows with different rosters. They could really make a big difference to a lot of their approaches with certain talent, match ups etc. Just thinking of matches like Aliester Black vs Kevin Owens or Buddy Murphy or Brock or any combination of the above sounds fantastic. I hope we finally just get a load of fresh feuds, interesting and different approaches to the shows and keeping them separate.
Which will last like 4 weeks until Survivor Series but you know. That’s life.

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USA gave them more money but because of 3 hours. People forget that. Nice to see USA pledge NBCU step up as a partner and match the Fox personalities even if they aren’t as notable.

And apparently this is a real hard split. I’m curious how and who made the splits - like Heyman and Bischoff fighting for people for creative reasons is really interesting to me. Networks wanting star power is interesting. Vince fucking with ppl to split up couples is not. WWE trying to make this silly by splitting up known teams like AOP is not.

A War Room style chronicle on the network would be fascinating. And smart to produce to make this legitimate for future drafts or shake ups.

Also if they wanted to get real serious I’d 100% be down with bonuses being awarded to members of brands and creative based on ratings now that Smackdown is in a position to compete with what’s historically been the flag ship.

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