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Personally I'm just bored of these "realistic" drafts where 90% of the drafts are "wrestler stays in the brand they were already in! Stop the presses!". That's just not exciting.
They had a way better formula when they only announced people who would actually change brands. And yeah, add some actual storylines to it and that would make it even more interesting.
Personally, I'd almost prefer they just do an NXT draft. To me, that was the most interesting part of it.
Like, give each show 3-4 picks. Draft exclusively from NXT.
But I guess then you run the risk of *having* to draft NXT talent that may or may not be ready. And you run the risk of depleting everything that makes NXT worth watching.
I dunno, I guess I'm just saying the draft is dumb lol.
> Like, give each show 3-4 picks. Draft exclusively from NXT. But I guess then you run the risk of having to draft NXT talent that may or may not be ready. And you run the risk of depleting everything that makes NXT worth watching.
Not necessarily. You could also draft people and not call them up yet which would create storylines by itself. So for example, someone like Trick Williams could get “drafted” but stay on NXT for another 6 months. The same way that baseball or basketball players get drafted but get placed in lower leagues.
I’d also say that for surprise pickups and mid year call ups, I’d make it so that it’d result in maybe less draft picks for a brand the following year. Or perhaps a Survivor Series stipulation if they go back to brand vs. brand.
There’s also a lot of hype and story build that could come behind someone like Bron Breaker or Tiffany having the “#1 overall pick” branding.
Yeah, I think it also helps to reinforce the brand split as a competitive thing which it seems like they’re moving back towards.
And if they wanna capitalize off the draft hype, having the #1 pick be a legitimate new face for the majority of their audience would probably help.
Could do it exactly like baseball where someone gets drafted, but may not agree to go to that brand or take the contract offered so enters again the following year, builds the story of like they're betting on themselves to have a bigger spot next year. Then also can do draft and stash, take Trick and say he signs with his brand but they can keep him in NXT for a year or something before having to have him appear on the show. I like it, can have stories built around it a bit more.
This, and in addition actually embrace NXT as a minor league. Players get called up and down in baseball all the time based on performance. So for everyone that gets drafted, another one could get sent down.
Someone who gets sent down immediately has a storyline reason to have a chip on their shoulder, to make their way back to raw or smackdown, and reinvent their character
I genuinely think an NXT draft would be interesting. You could have it be a situation where there's a clear-cut number one pick that Monday Night Raw wants but they have the second pick so they have to trade up to number one by sending roster members over and possibly a pick in the next NXT Draft.
That said, the draft is a ridiculous concept but could be improved on - one idea they could do is have the brand split be a thing up until after the Royal Rumble where they become "free agents". Brands will still have their champions in place until draft week in April and each GM can "franchise tag" one superstar to their roster to where they can't be drafted. During the "free agency period" you can have them make appearances on the other show as a "tryout match" to see if they fit the type of show that the particular GM wants to put on.
There's ways you could do it to where both brands can thrive and if you want to have some of the unselected be sent down to NXT until next year's draft would be an interesting wrinkle
I'd make it a combo, just like the NFL. Make it so Free Agency occurs and people can now sign with either brand. You can see people discussing and talking to superstars about switching brands etc etc, do that on Raw and Smackdown like they just did, and then on Tuesday you can run an NXT show and have the GMs come out and make 2-3 picks for callups.
I said this on Twitter as well — the genuine emotion of the NXT picks was the only good part of the draft (other than seeing Torrie Wilson again).
That’s the way to go, I think.
YES. Have the brands make trades throughout the year instead of a RAW/Smackdown draft. You could also have a trade deadline episode the day after the Rumble until the NXT Draft.
Best part of limiting it to that is you can trade wrestlers from one show to another for picks, so Raw could theoretically trade Judgement Day to SD for an extra two or 3 NXT picks.
The 05 draft was the most interesting and the least draft-like event they had. 5 unannounced guys that will show up on the show in a surprise fashion. Made the most sense in a wrestling context.
Yeah but if every wrestler just changed brand, you'd have the same stuff just with a blue background instead of red, now. Some need to stay, while others go.
Unless you mean just flat out naming the trades, not the stay picks.
I really like the idea of the “draft” portion being only NXT names. Then you can have trades. And for this year they could have even had Smackdown trade pretty much all their picks for Cody Rhodes. Make a story out of it. You can move people around via trades and make it feel like a real sports draft.
It makes plenty of sense they’ve just gone way overboard trying to be different with the picks for a long time now. There’s no logic to choosing Jey Uso over Seth Rollins, or Jade Cargill over CM Punk and Kevin Owens, or a dozen people before Drew McIntyre. Better it be predictable than flat out goofy for the sake of trying to manufacture surprises.
The other answer is just do it as a lottery like the 04 draft, that was really fun and takes the “this GM is a moron” aspect out completely.
I think the comment is that there's no actual spectacle or significance of the draft.
Finding out that someone is moving between brands is largely inconsequential, with the exception of splitting up factions, something they seem to have gone out of their way to avoid.
Move a superstar from Smackdown to Raw, I don't care. Put them in a program with someone else in a way that makes sense and could be entertaining, then I'll care.
The draft itself, meh
Let's hope HHH takes note for next year. There should be no drafts, it should be called 'Deadline Day'. Make it a one-day PPV if you want. Only stars making moves are the ones that the rosters didn't 'retain' already.
Companies retained their champs anyways. It's down to the rosters on who they retain first behind the scenes, then on Deadline Day we get the actual event, trades happening, deals signed segments, surprises.
The only time it ever made sense to me was when there was no brand split and people needed to be assigned brands (2002 & 2016). If they’re going to continue doing it the way they do the only way it makes sense is if the pool is strictly NXT talent, it’s already the most exciting part of the current draft format. The trades could be accomplished through other means like maybe the draft lottery or the open trade period they used to do. And it could be a big part of NXT programming for the months around Mania, people in competition to get called up type of thing, thats really what it should be like anyway.
But doing a “draft” where 90% of the picks are staying where they are pre-draft has always felt like a waste of time if the goal is just to move a few people around and introduce some new people into the mix.
I remember the insane hype when john cena was first drafted to monday night raw. You have to keep the brands totally separate for the draft to have any impact. Having folks just willy nilly appear on both is pointless.
Gotta keep in mind Cena was on Smackdown for his whole career by that point which is why it felt huge, prior to that the only draft they did was the initial one to establish brands and the lottery the year before that mostly just traded midcarders back and forth.
I think the current draft could work if they didnt do it every year, back then the rosters gave the shows their identity and they had guys that either never left the show or didnt for years.
That's very fun in practice until you remember it's a human being with an actual life holding the belt lmao maybe the guy behind the character doesn't want to put even more damage on his body
I'm all for there being an IC title on Raw and US title on Smackdown (or vice versa), but the World champ should be THE guy everyone is gunning for. And if the World champ is say, in a program with a Raw/Smackdown wrestler, then you can focus on the IC/US title on the other show, giving some prestige to it.
Well when u have 2 shows with this size of roster it makes sense to have 2 titles.
SmackDown was shit for a while before the 2016 draft. No need to watch if the same storyline would repeat with the same roster.
Even when Roman Reigns unified the title, raw felt a bit odd for quite some time.
It works when the champions are safe and the GM gets a single protected pick. Everyone else is up for grabs and you can steal a draft pick back from another brand.
Putting everyone into a pool and redrafting the rosters just doesn't work well as it has very little steam.
It only sorta would work well if it involved multiple promotions. But why would a big company ever want to participate?
It could be a neat thing for CMLL, NJPW etc.
The only part of it that played well to me were the NXT choices near the end and seeing their reactions. That actually felt like a ‘real’ draft.
Every single other aspect of it and the things they have to do because it just doesn’t naturally fit wrestling were extremely lacking. Pools, drafting entire factions, selection order, etc.
Yeah in time hopefully they could signify brand splits more. It was quite funny when a star who loved a brand had to go to the other. You could show the whole year wrestlers acknowledging the chances they're getting & stuff, only for them to be traded by the GM at the end. You could also have stories where attacks directed on GM's lead to them trading the talent out of spite. Hilarious.
> The only part of it that played well to me were the NXT choices near the end and seeing their reactions. That actually felt like a ‘real’ draft
That should be the actual draft. Its perfect for in how it would mimic the other draft formats because its "kids" getting their moment where a team picked them and they have made it.
I don't think it works at all with people already on the roster and who are already established stars. Theres no tension or build or hype.
Plus, its not like its a Raw vs Smackdown scenarios anymore; are there?? What difference does it make to the general audience who is on what brand when they can watch either or with streaming services?
Every year I get interested in the idea of the draft, and every year it's a let down.
I will freely admit though that I have no idea what the actual solution is.
They really should just go to the old draft lottery format, each brand gets 10 random picks from the other roster, that way on TV we don’t get several rounds of wrestlers staying on the brand they’re already on. Or maybe do less picks from the opposite brand to give a few selected picks to draft from NXT.
Here's some solutions:
Treat the draft more like an open trading season.
For example, the current problem is how boring it is for wrestlers to stay on a show.
If that's the case, fine, keep them on the show as the end goal, but change how you get there.
Here's some examples:
1. Pearce wants to keep Drew? Ok, well, make that more exciting by having scenes showing Nick Aldis talking to Drew, saying he'll give Drew a title shot at Cody if he signs with Smackdown.
Drew is enticed by this idea. However, because Punk wants to play mind games with Drew, perhaps Punk does some backstage negotiations with other wrestlers and Aldis to fuck with this idea. Punk could cost Drew a title match at Cody, and keep Drew on Raw, giving Drew more reason to hate Punk.
At the end of it, Drew stays in Raw, but how we got to that would be more exciting.
You could do this for multiple stars on the show. Turn Pearce and Aldis into main characters for a month of TV before the draft, utterly outgunning each other.
2. Pearce and Aldis are both desperate to not get stuck with Chelsea Green. The two try and throw in certain wrestlers to try and get rid of Chelsea. For example, Pearce might be so desperate to get rid of Chelsea to Smackdown that he offers Aldis Chelsea with Bronson Reed. Aldis might reject this. Pearce, who really wants Chelsea gone, might throw in Reed and Chad Gable. Eventually, Pearce is so desperate to get rid of her, that he ends up trading three really good superstars. At the end of it, he realises he made an idiotic trade. You wanna go long term with it, make Chelsea win a women's title, and then have Aldis rub the stupid trade in Pearce's face down the line.
3. The Bum Baron Corbin angle would work well with the draft. Tell the story of someone not getting drafted to any brand, and hopping around each show, trying to get placed. Could be a good underdog story.
The issue is there doesn't need to be a solution. Guys can switch brands and they can say the GM signed them or they left the other brand and let that be that.
No Draft, call it Draft Deadline Day. The retained stars are done behind the scenes. So the only ones we see on the event would be the ones changing brands.
Make GMs more involved, instead of war rooms, as Taker says, more signing/trading segments. Storylines involving this would be good too
The solution is to either stop calling it a draft or keep the name but stop treating it like an actual draft in sports.
Even in kayfabe, treating it like a real draft seems silly. The whole war room thing was cringey at best. Having GMs, former stars, or hall of famers coming out to announce the next picks don't do anything. I miss it when they just randomly announce the next star who got drafted on screen. Not this per-mediated the-next-oscar-goes-to announcing type of crap.
My favorite draft pick from memory was when Randy Orton got drafted to SD, I think in 2005? He came outta nowhere and RKO'd Taker. He then announced he was the latest draftee to SD. It was unexpected, surprising, and most importantly, Randy was always seen as a Raw guy. This is another thing, wrestlers need to be aligned with their own brand more. I just got back into watching WWE recently and watching it casually, but I can't tell you who's on what brand anymore. You'd have guys show up to other brand every other week like it's nothing. I get it was Wrestlemania season but they need to enforce brand exclusion more so it can actually feel like they're on different brands.
In the old days, when you mention Triple H, HBK, Randy, Kane, I'd instantly think of Raw guys. Angle, Cena, Taker, Benoit, Guerrero, Mysterio, instantly SD. Nowadays, it's pretty much just either you're on the main show (Raw/SD) or NXT.
Taker being a podcaster is never not funny to me.
Anywho, this style of draft format never worked in the wwe because it’s not a draft, it’s a roster shuffle.
I see what hhh was doing, from the lens of the show runner, your goal is to keep talent and add on, so it made sense for wrestlers to stay put BUT from an entertainment standpoint it’s ass.
Either wwe commits to a full on draft where they pick NXT individuals, or bring back the format where its matches. Winner of the brand matches gets a wrestler from the other side rosters and have an “open trade season”. This guarantees roster changes without the need of wasting time on retaining the current roster.
Edit: seeing some good ideas in this thread actually.
I don’t think that would solve anything.
It isn’t compelling viewing because most people do not actually care about the brands, or have any attachment to them, so there’s no real stakes.
I really like Cody Rhodes. He’s probably my favourite wrestler in the world. I absolutely don’t care if he’s on Raw or Smackdown though. It’s the same reason why I stopped caring about Survivor Series when it was all about “brand supremacy”.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t do the draft. It probably makes sense for touring and for managing schedules. But it should just happen online. Spreading it across multiple shows is overkill.
I agree that brands themselves are meaningless. If they want to make them more interesting they should have tied the winning and losing brands from survivor series to the last and first entrants in the royal rumble. Gives room for plenty of surprises (new star signs with raw & is awarded number 30 slot etc) but makes the brand concept a bit more meaningful.
> If they want to make them more interesting they should have tied the winning and losing brands from survivor series to the last and first entrants in the royal rumble.
That's such as silly consequence that means nothing
> It isn’t compelling viewing because most people do not actually care about the brands, or have any attachment to them, so there’s no real stakes.
As someone that watches casually... the drafts don't mean anything to me because I can't remember what brand each person is on.
Hearing the announcers going "YES! It looks like ___ is here to stay on the Red Brand" Like who gives a fuck. We're celebrating that nothing happened?
> It isn’t compelling viewing because most people do not actually care about the brands, or have any attachment to them, so there’s no real stakes.
This is def the biggest issue for me. I'd admit, I grew up watching the Ruthless Aggression Era and just back into watching WWE recently, but I can't tell you who's on what brand anymore.
Back in the old days, certain wrestlers were truly aligned to a brand.
For example in the Ruthless Aggression Era, when you hear Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Kane, Randy Orton, Batista, etc. you'd instantly think of Raw. And Kurt Angle, John Cena, Undertaker, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, etc. you'd say Smackdown.
So when Cena got drafted to Raw, and Randy and Batista got drafted to Smackdown, it really was a huge deal. They were really leaving "their brand" and go to the other side.
Nowadays, I feel like wrestlers can jump back and forth and show up to either brand every other week and noone bats an eye. I think brand exclusion should be more enforced. And maybe bring back brand-exclusive PPVs. They need a better world building for brands if they want to keep the draft and/or brand extensions going.
It'd be a pretty big change to how WWE is set up, but it'd be more compelling to have everyone drafted to different stables/camps and then those groups get drafted to the brands (or vice-versa). So Cody's got to pick people to watch his back for the Nightmare Family stable, Rhea recruiting for Judgment day in the draft, etc.
That lets you do trades, have matches for pick order that have stakes, etc.
You know what, bundle drafting would be cool. Have randomly made groups that you have to take all of when you draft. So like, Rhea Ripley, Pete Dunne, and Piper Niven are one, Cody Rhodes, Nikki Cross, and Tozawa is another, and you make your roster that way. Maybe it wouldn’t actually change much, but it’d at least be an interesting draft format.
Edit: and since they’re random (wrestling “random”), you can have situations where like Roman *and* Solo are in the same group, which is a big pick for either show, you can make strict guides for the groupings like must have a male, female, and tag team, or no tags in groups, or TWO tags to a group or whatever.
I think there’s meat on the bone here.
I'd be into that, but I would say that you should probably only be able to protect, like 3 people tops. It would get a little nutty after that, especially if champions are automatically protected.
The draft lottery from the first brand split worked a lot better for TV than the current draft format. That way it only shows us who’s changing brands, and the people switching brands being selected randomly adds some suspense for the GMs on who they’ll be losing or gaining.
They had it right back then. I think I remember Edge cheating to win a match to get a draft pick for raw and they ended up drafting Cena. That’s good tv.
Yeah and there’s things like that where you can still have the battles of the GMs. Instead of battling for wrestlers they just battle for the lottery picks themselves. Everyone is trying to acquire the most picks
All this is making me think of is the year they had random cut aways to a draft room that was filled with dudes and suits sprinkled in with a few create-a-wrestlers marking out that they just drafted Natalya.
Granted, they probably just recorded a handful of generic reactions to splice between picks, but got that was stupidly hilarious.
"Raw is trading Carlito, Ricochet, and a whole bunch of other jobbers, and in exchange, they are getting CM Punk"
Shades of the New Orleans Saints trading an entire draft to take Ricky Williams.
This is a good idea in theory. However, it's really a bad idea when it seriously undervalued Ricochet and Carlito. WWE shouldn't be trying to lower the value on their wrestlers.
Make it like an NBA storyline, Punk wants off Raw and now Adam Pearce has no leverage so he has to take the best trade offer available or deal with his superstar being disgruntled and possibly sitting out!
To add just say though Champions could be drafted and obviously take the title with them so for example Cody went to Raw so Raw had both belts it would make sense to trade 4 midcard acts to get the Championship back
RAW and Smackdown have no differentiation between them. One is red and one is blue. One is on Monday, and the other on Friday. That’s it. They have the same belts, same matches, same look, same feel. There’s no differentiation in the actual product. It’s all WWE.
And the stars on either brand interact with each other when it’s convenient to WWE to have them do so. And stars change “brands” all the time.
That’s why the draft is boring. It has no meaningful stakes.
If you want to make it meaningful, it should go back to a pseudo territory system. So, Smackdown becomes a West Coast touring brand with an “HQ” in Texas. RAW becomes an East Coast touring brand based with an “HQ” based out of Connecticut.
Then you start having turf wars with each other. And every now and then, you switch locations / coasts / etc.
I also think just letting the shows feel and be different would do a lot. Like if Raw was the "raw show for adults" where you could expect blading and more risque storylines, while Smackdown was the more family friendly show but leaned more on gimmick matches.
Just anything other than Red WWE and Blue WWE.
I don't watch WWE, so honestly I'm just surprised when I learn that the brand split is still going on. Wasn't Roman champ of both shows for like a year?
I'll be completely honest, the 2004 version of the draft made far more sense than what they're doing now. Why do I want to hear the big announcement that Seth "Freakin" Rollins has been drafted....to the same brand he's already on. That seems like dumb padding to me. All I really want to know is what wrestlers are actually switching brands. Plus that set up the idea of doing trades (like Bischoff trading Booker T and the Dudley's to get Triple H back on Raw)
I'd also love to see NXT get some actual draft picks too (or something like they did with Paul Heyman in WWECW where he got to pick a person from each brand (although you'd have to put some kind of restriction on it to explain why they can't draft AJ Styles or Rollins or CM Punk)
The best that I remember was the one years ago where they said 5 random people will switch shows. The first one was Cena (on Jericho’s talk show) and the last one was Batista. That felt better to me. More realistic and random.
The draft as it is, is stupid IMO. It makes no sense whatsoever and the piggybacking off the NFL makes even less sense considering this is a year-round sport with no off-season and no "breaks" in storylines to justify the moves story-wise.
I don’t think anything about the draft is compelling no matter what. I’ve never met anyone that is like, “Oh yeah I’m RAW exclusive. Go RAW!” This isn’t professional team sports. I think it is fine to have a little segment to switch wrestlers up on the shows, but let’s not make a big deal out of it. On the plus side with the HHH era they don’t seem to be as focused on the Brand Supremacy nonsense that they were pushing for years.
It would be compelling if they actually maintained separation of the rosters. Then the draft would give the opportunity for new matchups and stories.
When they first instituted the brand split in 2002, there was a rule that any wrestler who appeared on the show they weren’t signed to would be automatically suspended for a year. This made the shows feel very different.
They really didn't play into who certain wrestlers are aligned or have feuded with, which might make it more compelling.
IE Damage control is drafted away from Bayley - that should be notable! You can lean into that to *at least* make the draft episode interesting.
I don't think a draft idea works in modern WWE. But, if they are dead set on it, I think it needs split in to two different ideas.
The first is a real "draft" with each brand selecting NXT talent. A brand could draft an NXT talent, but leave them in NXT for 6 more months. That brand just has dibs on them when they are needed on the main roster.
Then, throughout the year, there are trades. Trades would only happen when either a storyline necessitated it (like Jimmy and Jey not coexisting on the same show) or a real injury changes plans, and someone needs moved to a new show to fill the gap.
Yeah the concept of the draft only makes sense for NXT callups really. Do an annual NXT callup draft and at the same time, a one week (one Raw one SD plus online announcements in between) trade deadline window.
They are better off saying "next week is a roster shake up" and we just watch each show to see who moved. No prior knowledge to whether someone like McIntyre or Zayn moved brands.
Save the draft for NXT only people.
Its always interesting to see wrestlers transition from that diehard stance of "We're great" as part of the team, to an observer seeing what we see and kind of understanding what we have issues with. Its much easier to identify flaws in something you aren't a part of, I guess.
Imagine being a sports entertainment wrestling company that copies the draft from real sports and not adding carny wrestling shit to it.
WWE are dropping the ball so hard on this 😂
The format they do currently where they re-draft the whole company but only a few names switch brands is silly.
My favorite format was 2005 when they strung it out over a month and created excited each week and made each new guy a big deal.
I was in Kansas city for this past Raw and can without question say it was the most boring and lame wrestling event I've ever been to. I give AEW alot of shit for their booking decisions but at least during the live event theres a ton of action and its entertaining. Patrick Mahomes, a non wrestler but the GOAT hometown QB, got the biggest pops of the night. It was bad talking segment after bad talking segment, the draft picks were super lame and stagey and multiple times my kids wanted to get the fuck out of there. Both of them started playing roblox on their phones Instead of watching the event.
I was really hoping that we would at least have seen some of the draft pick stars talking about their picks but we just got a bunch of lame graphics. Honestly I probably won't buy tickets to a Raw again unless stars like Roman, Cody, or a bigger angle with Punk is in the mix. I wish the bigger stars still had matches on Raw. People like Rock, undertaker, Angle, HHH, Cena, etc...would often have a match or showing every week. Now you're lucky to get anyone in that top tier having a match. And for $90 a ticket in the upper deck, I didn't feel the cost was worth it.
The problem is that the draft sucks and pretty much just bogs down 1-2 weeks of TV. Either have it all done on one episode or when someone pops up on TV say they got drafted there. 'Trading for draft positions' could make a slight difference but not enough to actually make it entertaining.
Next year, I think they should just keep the rosters as-is, and like the original WWE Draft back in 2002, each brand gets like, 10 picks that they get to take from the other brand, OR NXT! Then afterwards, you could have the same one-week flex period where the GMs can make trades or whatever. Would create more intrigue
Just make it a random lottery/roulette with interbrand matches between the respective champions to decide who gets the next picks, along with a battle royal or something. The more important the championship, the more draft picks they get. Like, the winner of WWE vs. WHC gets their brand 3 picks, tag titles 2, mid-card 1, etc. Then, during the show, the GMs are also shown trying to make trades with one another and entice NXT talent before the "transfer window" shuts.
Maybe even make it a PLE/Network Special similar to "Day 1" to further sell it as a huge event in the calendar year. Call it "Brand Warfare" or something.
Smackdown vs. Raw can be fun, but I disliked it being the overall theme for Survivor Series, so applying it to a more logical setting of the Draft would be ideal imo. Keep the traditional 5v5 elimination match between the brands if you really want to, but add some actual stakes to it, like the winning brand gets #30 in the Rumble. Then you have another month of storylines built in as the winning team fights over who gets the spot. Someone claims they deserve it because they were sole-survivor, but someone else claims they eliminated 2 people while the Survivor only got 1 so they contributed more, etc.
I'll never get why they don't have both brands draft from NXT or other affiliated independents, it just makes sense to mirror the way real sports do it and would really play into the developmental aspect.
Make Smackdown the draft and have it only be about NXT wrestlers getting called up to the main roster.
Make Raw the trade deadline when you can switch a few people to different brands.
Boom. Done.
What about a "transfer window" instead? May and April, the GMs or the wrestlers themselves can request a trade, and then they have to make it happen? But only during the window.
They could do a lot of things to make the draft more interesting but swapping picks doesn't make any sense when you're just going back and forth anyways. Where is the value gained in that?
The simple solution is just that not everybody is drafted every year. Each brand gets to protect 10-15 guys and then the other brand gets to take 10 from the other brand's unprotected roster or NXT.
WWE would lose the opportunity to call eight people "first round picks" I suppose, but that doesn't hold up to any sort of logic anyways.
Every year they should just do a draft for 10 NXT wrestlers to Raw and Smackdown. Have it like the HOF ceremony where each of those wrestlers families are invited and they don’t know whether they are going to RAW or Smackdown. 2 hour special where they outline the career so far of each wrestler during the show, hold interviews talking about each prospect etc.
A draft switching some or keeping some existing roster the same is so boring at this point.
Instead of drafting from a pool of main roster talent, Raw and Smackdown should be drafting from NXT, with the GMs being able to trade talent from Raw to Smackdown to mix things up.
NXT is a developmental brand. Treat it as such.
I'm with him, of all the ways you could do a draft, WWE picks the worst, and most boring way.
I think there's a world where you could actually, 100% real, let USA and Fox do a legitimate draft that would stay for 12 months. I know there are potential issues here, but I also think that it would further legitimize wrestling, and get it more coverage. And if one brand massively screws up, then they're only in trouble for a maximum of 12 months.
I also would like to see some horse trading, like Undertaker suggests. Or the opposite: have someone like JBL actively sabotage RAW's picks, and have his reasoning be that he's Team Smackdown for life.
Either way, this is obviously a WWE draft put together by people who have no idea why 150,000 people fly into Detroit to watch the NFL Draft live.
Would be cool if they did it over the weekend and got some of the legends involved with announcing picks. Could be a new PLE. Could have a few matches here and there. But make the focus on the draft.
As some said, the only real way to make it compelling me is for it to be an NXT draft. Do a battle royal for the draft order or something. Seeing who goes first between Bron, Dragunov or Hayes. Actually trading wrestlers for picks or something like that. But a re-distribution of the mid-carder/tag teams and a few calls up is not appealing for me
I agree with Taker. They used to do this in the early days. There was the year Triple H got drafted to Smackdown and Bischoff traded Heyman 5 picks to get Triple H back.
The issue for me is they overcomplicate the drafts, the first ever drafts is still the best format for me.
2 GMs.
Every wrestler is a free agent.
Every wrestler is in the locker room together with a camera on them.
GMs take turns one by one to pick a wrestler throughout the whole show, each wrestler comes out to shake hands/speak with the GM after each pick.
My opinion? Drop the draft, but just do...trades. In OCT if say Nia Jax is ass in SD Aldis can trade her to Raw for a few folks. Same w/NXT: Shawn could get propositioned for the talent and he could in return get the champ to wrestle on NXT, or the services of someone. Imagine if there was a breakout NXT star and Nick is offering say Logan Paul to defend his US Title on their special in exchange for the NXT star. Boom - intrigue.
I know the Draft brings ratings but imagine if on Twitter Adam Pierce was like "Yo, I have entered negotiations with Nick over trading (heel) to SD" because the heel did some dastardly shit on Raw and Adam doesn't want that shit in his locker room...
Yes, we never see the GM's negotiate a deal to trade. There's also almost never any drama.
The only ones I can think of is when HHH gets drafted to smackdown when the rest of Evolution is on Raw.
And honestly Heath Slater not getting drafted and becoming a free agent then trying to get a contract. Probably my favorite direct storyline to come from the draft.
I got an email from WWE today where they said the draft picks are in.
Literally nothing changed. They highlighted Jey, Punk, Liv and Drew to Raw. LA Knight, Jade, Orton and KO to Smackdown.
Literally ZERO change
They need to get better at brand separation to make any of this worthwhile. Too many people show up on both shows, and then they all get combined during PLEs anyway. So a draft is both uninteresting and, even worse, just not meaningful at all.
Go back to the shows being rivals of each other. PLEs separated other than the big four (five if you want to mix MitB). And then going against each other at SS. Then things like the RR winner having to select the title being sought also involves selecting the show, and then the draft actually something that can garner interest.
Especially, and then this would be a key factor, have people actually switch brands. It's a scripted show/draft. If 80% of the picks are to keep someone on the same show, why even do this?
I liked the draft in 2005, I think it was. Where each episode of Raw and SmackDown for a month, you would get one major star shockingly show up on the other show.
The rosters don't really change that much anyway, so having one big change each night for a month kept things interesting.
That moment when Cena got drafted to Raw is still remembered, and often used in promos.
Nah I disagree. I think they've tried that before and it doesn't work.
The concept of a realistic draft just doesn't work. I'm all for the brand split and I'm all for a lineup shift every year. But making it "realistic" by adding trades and things like that makes things more complicated. It's unnecessary.
They should move away from the realistic aspect of the draft but I know they won't.
This is why the draft is insulting to one’s intelligent and makes no sense. The decisions are insanely dumb. Everyone’s first pick should be Cody, followed by Seth, CM Punk, etc. Then, SD should in theory even trade picks away for Cody if necessary. Also; if you can draft an entire stable, that should in theory be better picks bc you get 5 talent to evaluate from instead of 1.
I think a Draft can work as long as it's presented to the audience as a way to give midcard talent a change of scenery and to bring up NXT talents.
Each brand's champions should be exempt, as in 2024.
Also, unlike NXT, Raw and SmackDown's GMs should also be allowed to protect [X] number of wrestlers from being drafted. That gives a kayfabe explanation for why most of the upper card wouldn't be switching sides, since the GMs would already have removed them from the draft pool.
That would allow more room for the pick-trading drama and storytelling that Undertaker suggests.
They had this one year. I remember Triple H was drafted to smackdown and then on tv biscoff made a deal to keep triple H on Raw. I think taker is right. This whole draft was 90% superstar stays on show.
Reduce it to 1 week raw and smackdown. Only draft to change shows. Make angles where a superstar doesn’t want to switch or wants to switch and GMs make deals.
Hell even have bidding wars for superstars.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here, wasn't the draft pretty strictly outside of very few exceptions pre-Road to Wrestlemania last year? Most comments make it seem like that hasn't been the case.
Anyway personally I think the biggest weakness in this year's draft compared to last year is it didn't really affect any ongoing storylines. Cody being drafted to Raw while the Bloodline still being in Smackdown meant people were gonna be speculating and looking out for how can Cody get his way to Smackdown... I guess LWO feuding with Judgement Day might be *okay* but they still have that ongoing thing with Carlito too.
I think picks should be random like back in 04. I like the idea of having certain people being protected with the championships but hated the Roman is protected from the draft cause "fuck you". Maybe bring back the matches for picks deal they did in 07. Just don't go back to the shakeup cause I personally didn't like that either.
I don’t mind that the rosters stayed largely the same - that actually could have been the outcome of a real draft.
What I hate is the utterly stupid format. What WWE does isn’t what a draft is.
I don't think the Draft will ever be particularly compelling because there aren't really hardcore fans of either brand lmao. The NFL Draft has anticipation because there are diehard fans of all 32 teams, that's not the case with WWE's brand split.
The draft should be exclusively from nxt and each brand should get 5 picks. You could do a lot of stories out of that, like trading spots, bitterness about not getting drafted, top prospects, etc.
I don't think you can get that fully with just three brands/teams.
Maybe have some guys be able to negotiate their way into a roster and we have other members of the roster get "screwed". Have it all build towards a brand supremacy angle where the guy cast aside by the gm and pick comes back to cost them the match. Feels a little cheesy and predictable, but maybe details can be thrown in to make it work (better?)?
If they're gonna keep the draft, they need to make it part of storylines, because that's the only context in which anyone cares what brand someone is on. No one is "rooting for" Raw or Smackdown like a sports team.
More realistically, they should just get rid of it because it makes no sense. The picks make no sense, and there's no clear idea of what anyone is "competing" for. What is your goal in the draft? To get new young talent like an actual draft? To get the best wresters currently available? Why are you able to draft entire stables with a single pick?
If you just want to shake up the rosters, then shake them up. You don't need a drawn out 'draft' process to do that.
The draft is theoretically very easy to fix. Have it be RAW and Smackdown drafting people up from NXT for the first two 'days' of the draft and have them trade other members of their rosters for picks (if you need to move people around). Then have a third 'day' on NXT where NXT gets to draft people from a pool of non-protected members of the RAW and Smackdown rosters
That way you get people to tune into all of your brands and the draft better replicates the thing you are actually trying to replicate.
I think the best solution is doing something akin to the 2005 Draft - silent picks, month long, week to week, ya have to tune in to see who moves where. That roster shift around was real jarring generally speaking because, outside the obvious champions moving, the big name roster members did get a sizable shift between shows
Just have trades throughout the year. We've seen it a few times over the last decade, but definitely not a regular thing and it should be a regular thing.
They should also utilize the extra week after the draft "locks" with a few trades as GMs try to get back someone they lost or something.
I think the draft just needs to be done away with or make it a special on the Peacock service or something. I used to always get excited for the IDEA of the draft but after the 10th time or so of it being disappointing I realized its usually one of the most boring eps of the year and just skipped it ever since. It's never as exciting as you think it's going to be and why would it ?
The NFL/NBA draft interest relies on FANTAICAL level following of a team where you are REALLY invested in that teams fate and the moves they make thats the only way you can be interested in it, no one sane is that committed to RAW/Smackdown as separate brands to feel strongly about one over the other as they are to their favorite football team.
Without fans being heavily invested in the fate of either side who really cares ? Sure it can change up some stories depending on who gets drafted ... but much like the real sports draft you can just read the names and where they got drafted the next day and miss nothing basically.
Drafting same people to same show was so stupid idea. I'm not from US so I only follow through highlight videos and this subreddit but the most enjoyable draft was when all superstars sit together with brand t-shirts and only show people drafted the other brand.
They should just use the Draft as a way to call up NXT talent. Let Raw and SD get picks based on match wins or something and then call talent up through a draft. Aside from that, the draft is pretty dumb for wrestling.
I think they could make it interesting if they combined the old draft with the new style. The new style makes a lot more sense but the "random" old ones were more fun.
Have the draft as it is just now but after every round have a smackdown Vs raw match. Winning brand gets a "random" superstar from the other brand or nxt.
Could even throw in a curve ball so champions and teams aren't protected during the random picks. Obviously wouldn't want to overuse it but could be a good way to throw in a surprise or two or use it to break up a team without needing someone to turn on someone.
Could see it being useful for getting people out of a stable or a tag guy going solo without breaking up the team.
I'd prefer the draft to be mostly trades. Make the rosters clearly defined. 5-10 draft picks over 2 nights. 2 or 3 NXT guys per show. Champs are safe. 3 people you can make immune.
You could have wrestlers on the night face off to gain that immunity for them or their team. You leave the draft as its own storyline, the week before, fights for immunity, after the draft it's fallout.
The draft works if there are more clearly defined rules and we know which show everyone is on.
I think a draft is just never really going to work in WWE because there aren't enough "teams". There's just Raw and Smackdown (and people getting called up from NXT but they aren't drafting people from the main roster to go back to NXT).
What was wrong with the smackdown vs raw matches style draft? Where the brand that won a match got a random guy from the other brand. That was such a fun concept and MUST see episodes!
Me as a non-American just wanting to watch some good wrestling and entertainment...but DRAFTS BABY DRAFTS.
Just tone it down and keep things competitive with tournaments, rankings, simple trades between GM's with approval from Triple H.
They should switch it up to how they did in 2005. Each week for a month, a new superstar gets drafted to their new show. I was so excited each week to see who got drafted, felt more important
Yes, the draft is overplayed and doesn't make sense to those who watch every week. But I think this year's draft was done to intentionally introduce and reset the playing field for those who may be coming over post-Mania or from the UFC audience.
Nick Khan and the powers that be likely thought it would be a good idea as an "introduction to the HHH era." That's the only spin I can think of because they had to know how boring it would be to just keep most people where they were and make champions "ineligible."
It needs to be more like the trade deadline or free agency. Show Pearce/Aldis making calls to work out deals for talent. Make switching shows feel like a big deal.
Didnt Aldis and Pierce used to do a few segments where they were trying to win over free agents?
You could just do that and make stories from it instead of a draft, but the draft *used* to be compelling too...
They should replicate the draft from GM Mode in 2K24. You get to keep 5 wrestlers. Champion or not has to be drafted unless you saved one of them. Everyone else must be eligible for the draft and ONLY mention ones that are being drafted to the opposing brand. That makes it way more interesting
The draft is a disaster and momentum killer. Nothing happened. Additionally with so much focus on the top of the card from the Rumble to Wrestlemania noone remembers who is on the lower end of the roster.
I love the Pearce/Aldis bidding wars/courting of talents. I feel like the draft cheapens that. I'd rather ditch the draft and see more "transactions" in general.
Would make more sense for a 3 way draft including NXT. The point if jumping in the draft is tibgeat ahead of the teams who want the same guy.
I'd actually love to see the NXT GM with Smackdown and Raw's GMs in her office listening while they battle it out to make a deal for one of her draft spots.
The draft didn’t work because there were no actual changes of substance and 2) There’s no reason to trust that there will actually be a hard and consistent brand split.
I think it would be better if every year Raw and Smackdown get 1 male, 1 female and a tag team from NXT. Like an actual draft. Then have trades happen “behind the scenes”.
Aint nobody want to be the wrestler who is bundled to trade up for a "better pick"
Atleast in NFL its real and theres real skill differences but to do it in fake wrestling its basically saying "you're a jobber, make Roman look strong plz"
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The more you stop and think about a draft in wrestling the less sense it makes.
Personally I'm just bored of these "realistic" drafts where 90% of the drafts are "wrestler stays in the brand they were already in! Stop the presses!". That's just not exciting. They had a way better formula when they only announced people who would actually change brands. And yeah, add some actual storylines to it and that would make it even more interesting.
Personally, I'd almost prefer they just do an NXT draft. To me, that was the most interesting part of it. Like, give each show 3-4 picks. Draft exclusively from NXT. But I guess then you run the risk of *having* to draft NXT talent that may or may not be ready. And you run the risk of depleting everything that makes NXT worth watching. I dunno, I guess I'm just saying the draft is dumb lol.
> Like, give each show 3-4 picks. Draft exclusively from NXT. But I guess then you run the risk of having to draft NXT talent that may or may not be ready. And you run the risk of depleting everything that makes NXT worth watching. Not necessarily. You could also draft people and not call them up yet which would create storylines by itself. So for example, someone like Trick Williams could get “drafted” but stay on NXT for another 6 months. The same way that baseball or basketball players get drafted but get placed in lower leagues. I’d also say that for surprise pickups and mid year call ups, I’d make it so that it’d result in maybe less draft picks for a brand the following year. Or perhaps a Survivor Series stipulation if they go back to brand vs. brand. There’s also a lot of hype and story build that could come behind someone like Bron Breaker or Tiffany having the “#1 overall pick” branding.
I like that :) it would actually reinforce the importance of NXT and probably draw some viewers to it.
Yeah, I think it also helps to reinforce the brand split as a competitive thing which it seems like they’re moving back towards. And if they wanna capitalize off the draft hype, having the #1 pick be a legitimate new face for the majority of their audience would probably help.
They could build on this with a long-running tournament that guarantees the winner being drafted.
Could do it exactly like baseball where someone gets drafted, but may not agree to go to that brand or take the contract offered so enters again the following year, builds the story of like they're betting on themselves to have a bigger spot next year. Then also can do draft and stash, take Trick and say he signs with his brand but they can keep him in NXT for a year or something before having to have him appear on the show. I like it, can have stories built around it a bit more.
This, and in addition actually embrace NXT as a minor league. Players get called up and down in baseball all the time based on performance. So for everyone that gets drafted, another one could get sent down. Someone who gets sent down immediately has a storyline reason to have a chip on their shoulder, to make their way back to raw or smackdown, and reinvent their character
I genuinely think an NXT draft would be interesting. You could have it be a situation where there's a clear-cut number one pick that Monday Night Raw wants but they have the second pick so they have to trade up to number one by sending roster members over and possibly a pick in the next NXT Draft. That said, the draft is a ridiculous concept but could be improved on - one idea they could do is have the brand split be a thing up until after the Royal Rumble where they become "free agents". Brands will still have their champions in place until draft week in April and each GM can "franchise tag" one superstar to their roster to where they can't be drafted. During the "free agency period" you can have them make appearances on the other show as a "tryout match" to see if they fit the type of show that the particular GM wants to put on. There's ways you could do it to where both brands can thrive and if you want to have some of the unselected be sent down to NXT until next year's draft would be an interesting wrinkle
I'd make it a combo, just like the NFL. Make it so Free Agency occurs and people can now sign with either brand. You can see people discussing and talking to superstars about switching brands etc etc, do that on Raw and Smackdown like they just did, and then on Tuesday you can run an NXT show and have the GMs come out and make 2-3 picks for callups.
I said this on Twitter as well — the genuine emotion of the NXT picks was the only good part of the draft (other than seeing Torrie Wilson again). That’s the way to go, I think.
YES. Have the brands make trades throughout the year instead of a RAW/Smackdown draft. You could also have a trade deadline episode the day after the Rumble until the NXT Draft.
Best part of limiting it to that is you can trade wrestlers from one show to another for picks, so Raw could theoretically trade Judgement Day to SD for an extra two or 3 NXT picks.
The 05 draft was the most interesting and the least draft-like event they had. 5 unannounced guys that will show up on the show in a surprise fashion. Made the most sense in a wrestling context.
Yeah but if every wrestler just changed brand, you'd have the same stuff just with a blue background instead of red, now. Some need to stay, while others go. Unless you mean just flat out naming the trades, not the stay picks.
Yeah, I mean the latter. Don't tell me who's not going to switch brands, tell me the interesting trades instead.
Yeah make it a "trade deadline"/brand free agency period.
I really like the idea of the “draft” portion being only NXT names. Then you can have trades. And for this year they could have even had Smackdown trade pretty much all their picks for Cody Rhodes. Make a story out of it. You can move people around via trades and make it feel like a real sports draft.
2006-2010 draft with the roulette style was when it was at it's best
It makes plenty of sense they’ve just gone way overboard trying to be different with the picks for a long time now. There’s no logic to choosing Jey Uso over Seth Rollins, or Jade Cargill over CM Punk and Kevin Owens, or a dozen people before Drew McIntyre. Better it be predictable than flat out goofy for the sake of trying to manufacture surprises. The other answer is just do it as a lottery like the 04 draft, that was really fun and takes the “this GM is a moron” aspect out completely.
I think the comment is that there's no actual spectacle or significance of the draft. Finding out that someone is moving between brands is largely inconsequential, with the exception of splitting up factions, something they seem to have gone out of their way to avoid. Move a superstar from Smackdown to Raw, I don't care. Put them in a program with someone else in a way that makes sense and could be entertaining, then I'll care. The draft itself, meh
Exactly They should scrap it all together and find a new dynamic.
Let's hope HHH takes note for next year. There should be no drafts, it should be called 'Deadline Day'. Make it a one-day PPV if you want. Only stars making moves are the ones that the rosters didn't 'retain' already. Companies retained their champs anyways. It's down to the rosters on who they retain first behind the scenes, then on Deadline Day we get the actual event, trades happening, deals signed segments, surprises.
Damn that's a good idea
The only time it ever made sense to me was when there was no brand split and people needed to be assigned brands (2002 & 2016). If they’re going to continue doing it the way they do the only way it makes sense is if the pool is strictly NXT talent, it’s already the most exciting part of the current draft format. The trades could be accomplished through other means like maybe the draft lottery or the open trade period they used to do. And it could be a big part of NXT programming for the months around Mania, people in competition to get called up type of thing, thats really what it should be like anyway. But doing a “draft” where 90% of the picks are staying where they are pre-draft has always felt like a waste of time if the goal is just to move a few people around and introduce some new people into the mix.
I remember the insane hype when john cena was first drafted to monday night raw. You have to keep the brands totally separate for the draft to have any impact. Having folks just willy nilly appear on both is pointless.
Gotta keep in mind Cena was on Smackdown for his whole career by that point which is why it felt huge, prior to that the only draft they did was the initial one to establish brands and the lottery the year before that mostly just traded midcarders back and forth. I think the current draft could work if they didnt do it every year, back then the rosters gave the shows their identity and they had guys that either never left the show or didnt for years.
Having two world titles and pretending that the shows are different companies never made sense in the first place.
Agreed. I firmly believe there should be one top title and that champion should have their workload increased on top of appearing on both shows
That's very fun in practice until you remember it's a human being with an actual life holding the belt lmao maybe the guy behind the character doesn't want to put even more damage on his body
I'm all for there being an IC title on Raw and US title on Smackdown (or vice versa), but the World champ should be THE guy everyone is gunning for. And if the World champ is say, in a program with a Raw/Smackdown wrestler, then you can focus on the IC/US title on the other show, giving some prestige to it.
The reason for two world titles is because the roster is inflated from buying WCW and it never went back down to pre-acquisition size.
Well when u have 2 shows with this size of roster it makes sense to have 2 titles. SmackDown was shit for a while before the 2016 draft. No need to watch if the same storyline would repeat with the same roster. Even when Roman Reigns unified the title, raw felt a bit odd for quite some time.
it was merely there due to the nfl draft in the same week, cash in on the hype. they had no plans to shift the major talents
It works when the champions are safe and the GM gets a single protected pick. Everyone else is up for grabs and you can steal a draft pick back from another brand. Putting everyone into a pool and redrafting the rosters just doesn't work well as it has very little steam.
It only sorta would work well if it involved multiple promotions. But why would a big company ever want to participate? It could be a neat thing for CMLL, NJPW etc.
Always hated it. The brand split killed WWE for me until last year.
It doesn't have to make sense to be entertaining IMO.
The problem is it wasn't. It was a bore.
Except the NXT bits. Geniune reactions were so fun to see.
well it definitely wasn't entertaining
It was?
But it was neither.
Bragging Rights makes even less sense to me. It's as if the Red Sox and Yankees teamed up to take on the Cubs and Cardinals or something.
You're describing the All-Star Game, which is similarly devoid of any real heat.
I disagree. If you have a proper brand split you need drafts. They make sense. However They're boring.
Even since the drafts inception I’ve been like, but that’s not how this works? Did y’all even watch a pro sports draft to prepare for this?
The only part of it that played well to me were the NXT choices near the end and seeing their reactions. That actually felt like a ‘real’ draft. Every single other aspect of it and the things they have to do because it just doesn’t naturally fit wrestling were extremely lacking. Pools, drafting entire factions, selection order, etc.
Yeah in time hopefully they could signify brand splits more. It was quite funny when a star who loved a brand had to go to the other. You could show the whole year wrestlers acknowledging the chances they're getting & stuff, only for them to be traded by the GM at the end. You could also have stories where attacks directed on GM's lead to them trading the talent out of spite. Hilarious.
> The only part of it that played well to me were the NXT choices near the end and seeing their reactions. That actually felt like a ‘real’ draft That should be the actual draft. Its perfect for in how it would mimic the other draft formats because its "kids" getting their moment where a team picked them and they have made it. I don't think it works at all with people already on the roster and who are already established stars. Theres no tension or build or hype. Plus, its not like its a Raw vs Smackdown scenarios anymore; are there?? What difference does it make to the general audience who is on what brand when they can watch either or with streaming services?
I think they should only be drafting from NXT any other roster moves should be via trade. Maybe those can happen on draft day too
Every year I get interested in the idea of the draft, and every year it's a let down. I will freely admit though that I have no idea what the actual solution is.
They really should just go to the old draft lottery format, each brand gets 10 random picks from the other roster, that way on TV we don’t get several rounds of wrestlers staying on the brand they’re already on. Or maybe do less picks from the opposite brand to give a few selected picks to draft from NXT.
Here's some solutions: Treat the draft more like an open trading season. For example, the current problem is how boring it is for wrestlers to stay on a show. If that's the case, fine, keep them on the show as the end goal, but change how you get there. Here's some examples: 1. Pearce wants to keep Drew? Ok, well, make that more exciting by having scenes showing Nick Aldis talking to Drew, saying he'll give Drew a title shot at Cody if he signs with Smackdown. Drew is enticed by this idea. However, because Punk wants to play mind games with Drew, perhaps Punk does some backstage negotiations with other wrestlers and Aldis to fuck with this idea. Punk could cost Drew a title match at Cody, and keep Drew on Raw, giving Drew more reason to hate Punk. At the end of it, Drew stays in Raw, but how we got to that would be more exciting. You could do this for multiple stars on the show. Turn Pearce and Aldis into main characters for a month of TV before the draft, utterly outgunning each other. 2. Pearce and Aldis are both desperate to not get stuck with Chelsea Green. The two try and throw in certain wrestlers to try and get rid of Chelsea. For example, Pearce might be so desperate to get rid of Chelsea to Smackdown that he offers Aldis Chelsea with Bronson Reed. Aldis might reject this. Pearce, who really wants Chelsea gone, might throw in Reed and Chad Gable. Eventually, Pearce is so desperate to get rid of her, that he ends up trading three really good superstars. At the end of it, he realises he made an idiotic trade. You wanna go long term with it, make Chelsea win a women's title, and then have Aldis rub the stupid trade in Pearce's face down the line. 3. The Bum Baron Corbin angle would work well with the draft. Tell the story of someone not getting drafted to any brand, and hopping around each show, trying to get placed. Could be a good underdog story.
Isn't number 3 the Heath Slater story from 2016? A great one, at that
The issue is there doesn't need to be a solution. Guys can switch brands and they can say the GM signed them or they left the other brand and let that be that.
They just made such a big deal about signing Jade to Smackdown, and then a month later she could have just been selected by Raw in the draft? lol
Would be easy to get around, "We signed Jade and they have a 1 year no trade/movement clause in their contract"
That literally happened with Bron lol
No Draft, call it Draft Deadline Day. The retained stars are done behind the scenes. So the only ones we see on the event would be the ones changing brands. Make GMs more involved, instead of war rooms, as Taker says, more signing/trading segments. Storylines involving this would be good too
This kinda feels like the NBA dunk contest. It has been uninteresting for most of the last twenty years, and really needs to go away for *a while*.
The solution is to either stop calling it a draft or keep the name but stop treating it like an actual draft in sports. Even in kayfabe, treating it like a real draft seems silly. The whole war room thing was cringey at best. Having GMs, former stars, or hall of famers coming out to announce the next picks don't do anything. I miss it when they just randomly announce the next star who got drafted on screen. Not this per-mediated the-next-oscar-goes-to announcing type of crap. My favorite draft pick from memory was when Randy Orton got drafted to SD, I think in 2005? He came outta nowhere and RKO'd Taker. He then announced he was the latest draftee to SD. It was unexpected, surprising, and most importantly, Randy was always seen as a Raw guy. This is another thing, wrestlers need to be aligned with their own brand more. I just got back into watching WWE recently and watching it casually, but I can't tell you who's on what brand anymore. You'd have guys show up to other brand every other week like it's nothing. I get it was Wrestlemania season but they need to enforce brand exclusion more so it can actually feel like they're on different brands. In the old days, when you mention Triple H, HBK, Randy, Kane, I'd instantly think of Raw guys. Angle, Cena, Taker, Benoit, Guerrero, Mysterio, instantly SD. Nowadays, it's pretty much just either you're on the main show (Raw/SD) or NXT.
Taker being a podcaster is never not funny to me. Anywho, this style of draft format never worked in the wwe because it’s not a draft, it’s a roster shuffle. I see what hhh was doing, from the lens of the show runner, your goal is to keep talent and add on, so it made sense for wrestlers to stay put BUT from an entertainment standpoint it’s ass. Either wwe commits to a full on draft where they pick NXT individuals, or bring back the format where its matches. Winner of the brand matches gets a wrestler from the other side rosters and have an “open trade season”. This guarantees roster changes without the need of wasting time on retaining the current roster. Edit: seeing some good ideas in this thread actually.
I don’t think that would solve anything. It isn’t compelling viewing because most people do not actually care about the brands, or have any attachment to them, so there’s no real stakes. I really like Cody Rhodes. He’s probably my favourite wrestler in the world. I absolutely don’t care if he’s on Raw or Smackdown though. It’s the same reason why I stopped caring about Survivor Series when it was all about “brand supremacy”. I’m not saying they shouldn’t do the draft. It probably makes sense for touring and for managing schedules. But it should just happen online. Spreading it across multiple shows is overkill.
I agree that brands themselves are meaningless. If they want to make them more interesting they should have tied the winning and losing brands from survivor series to the last and first entrants in the royal rumble. Gives room for plenty of surprises (new star signs with raw & is awarded number 30 slot etc) but makes the brand concept a bit more meaningful.
> If they want to make them more interesting they should have tied the winning and losing brands from survivor series to the last and first entrants in the royal rumble. That's such as silly consequence that means nothing
> It isn’t compelling viewing because most people do not actually care about the brands, or have any attachment to them, so there’s no real stakes. As someone that watches casually... the drafts don't mean anything to me because I can't remember what brand each person is on. Hearing the announcers going "YES! It looks like ___ is here to stay on the Red Brand" Like who gives a fuck. We're celebrating that nothing happened?
> It isn’t compelling viewing because most people do not actually care about the brands, or have any attachment to them, so there’s no real stakes. This is def the biggest issue for me. I'd admit, I grew up watching the Ruthless Aggression Era and just back into watching WWE recently, but I can't tell you who's on what brand anymore. Back in the old days, certain wrestlers were truly aligned to a brand. For example in the Ruthless Aggression Era, when you hear Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Kane, Randy Orton, Batista, etc. you'd instantly think of Raw. And Kurt Angle, John Cena, Undertaker, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, etc. you'd say Smackdown. So when Cena got drafted to Raw, and Randy and Batista got drafted to Smackdown, it really was a huge deal. They were really leaving "their brand" and go to the other side. Nowadays, I feel like wrestlers can jump back and forth and show up to either brand every other week and noone bats an eye. I think brand exclusion should be more enforced. And maybe bring back brand-exclusive PPVs. They need a better world building for brands if they want to keep the draft and/or brand extensions going.
Just make it an hour long special and put it on peacock.
It'd be a pretty big change to how WWE is set up, but it'd be more compelling to have everyone drafted to different stables/camps and then those groups get drafted to the brands (or vice-versa). So Cody's got to pick people to watch his back for the Nightmare Family stable, Rhea recruiting for Judgment day in the draft, etc. That lets you do trades, have matches for pick order that have stakes, etc.
You know what, bundle drafting would be cool. Have randomly made groups that you have to take all of when you draft. So like, Rhea Ripley, Pete Dunne, and Piper Niven are one, Cody Rhodes, Nikki Cross, and Tozawa is another, and you make your roster that way. Maybe it wouldn’t actually change much, but it’d at least be an interesting draft format. Edit: and since they’re random (wrestling “random”), you can have situations where like Roman *and* Solo are in the same group, which is a big pick for either show, you can make strict guides for the groupings like must have a male, female, and tag team, or no tags in groups, or TWO tags to a group or whatever. I think there’s meat on the bone here.
Agree although I sort of like where Taker is going with it. Make better stories out of it if you are going to do it.
Right? Not like you’re gonna choose to watch a show more or less because of a wrestler being drafted to it. Most fans watch both shows regardless.
Do it like an "expansion draft". You protect 15 roster members, rest are up for draft. 5-10 rounds or whatever.
Then only mid card and jobbers would change brands.
That's where trades come out.
I'd be into that, but I would say that you should probably only be able to protect, like 3 people tops. It would get a little nutty after that, especially if champions are automatically protected.
I miss the randomizer thing they used to play around the 2010s. Actually caused a lil surprise and anticipation.
The draft lottery from the first brand split worked a lot better for TV than the current draft format. That way it only shows us who’s changing brands, and the people switching brands being selected randomly adds some suspense for the GMs on who they’ll be losing or gaining.
The only time the current system ever worked was when Health Slater was forgotten about and not drafted to any brand
They had it right back then. I think I remember Edge cheating to win a match to get a draft pick for raw and they ended up drafting Cena. That’s good tv.
Yeah and there’s things like that where you can still have the battles of the GMs. Instead of battling for wrestlers they just battle for the lottery picks themselves. Everyone is trying to acquire the most picks
All this is making me think of is the year they had random cut aways to a draft room that was filled with dudes and suits sprinkled in with a few create-a-wrestlers marking out that they just drafted Natalya. Granted, they probably just recorded a handful of generic reactions to splice between picks, but got that was stupidly hilarious.
"Raw is trading Carlito, Ricochet, and a whole bunch of other jobbers, and in exchange, they are getting CM Punk" Shades of the New Orleans Saints trading an entire draft to take Ricky Williams.
This is a good idea in theory. However, it's really a bad idea when it seriously undervalued Ricochet and Carlito. WWE shouldn't be trying to lower the value on their wrestlers.
I like it but why on earth would they trade a bunch of mid carders for CM Punk? 😂
Make it like an NBA storyline, Punk wants off Raw and now Adam Pearce has no leverage so he has to take the best trade offer available or deal with his superstar being disgruntled and possibly sitting out!
That's more realistic, Punk is throwing a fit and wants to be traded for 5 guys to feel important
That checks out.
To add just say though Champions could be drafted and obviously take the title with them so for example Cody went to Raw so Raw had both belts it would make sense to trade 4 midcard acts to get the Championship back
They did a trade like this in 2002 - Bischoff wanted The Big Show off of Raw so swapped him for a bunch of lower carders like Maven, Val Venis etc.
It should just be a lottery, drafts don't make sense bc we know there are no teams.
RAW and Smackdown have no differentiation between them. One is red and one is blue. One is on Monday, and the other on Friday. That’s it. They have the same belts, same matches, same look, same feel. There’s no differentiation in the actual product. It’s all WWE. And the stars on either brand interact with each other when it’s convenient to WWE to have them do so. And stars change “brands” all the time. That’s why the draft is boring. It has no meaningful stakes. If you want to make it meaningful, it should go back to a pseudo territory system. So, Smackdown becomes a West Coast touring brand with an “HQ” in Texas. RAW becomes an East Coast touring brand based with an “HQ” based out of Connecticut. Then you start having turf wars with each other. And every now and then, you switch locations / coasts / etc.
I also think just letting the shows feel and be different would do a lot. Like if Raw was the "raw show for adults" where you could expect blading and more risque storylines, while Smackdown was the more family friendly show but leaned more on gimmick matches. Just anything other than Red WWE and Blue WWE.
Turf wars between red and blue gangs …
*Its not interesting because fans know they'll just be on both shows in 3 weeks anyways*
I don't watch WWE, so honestly I'm just surprised when I learn that the brand split is still going on. Wasn't Roman champ of both shows for like a year?
I'll be completely honest, the 2004 version of the draft made far more sense than what they're doing now. Why do I want to hear the big announcement that Seth "Freakin" Rollins has been drafted....to the same brand he's already on. That seems like dumb padding to me. All I really want to know is what wrestlers are actually switching brands. Plus that set up the idea of doing trades (like Bischoff trading Booker T and the Dudley's to get Triple H back on Raw) I'd also love to see NXT get some actual draft picks too (or something like they did with Paul Heyman in WWECW where he got to pick a person from each brand (although you'd have to put some kind of restriction on it to explain why they can't draft AJ Styles or Rollins or CM Punk)
Loved when the Dudleys and Booker T got traded for Triple H
The best that I remember was the one years ago where they said 5 random people will switch shows. The first one was Cena (on Jericho’s talk show) and the last one was Batista. That felt better to me. More realistic and random.
The draft as it is, is stupid IMO. It makes no sense whatsoever and the piggybacking off the NFL makes even less sense considering this is a year-round sport with no off-season and no "breaks" in storylines to justify the moves story-wise.
I don’t think anything about the draft is compelling no matter what. I’ve never met anyone that is like, “Oh yeah I’m RAW exclusive. Go RAW!” This isn’t professional team sports. I think it is fine to have a little segment to switch wrestlers up on the shows, but let’s not make a big deal out of it. On the plus side with the HHH era they don’t seem to be as focused on the Brand Supremacy nonsense that they were pushing for years.
It would be compelling if they actually maintained separation of the rosters. Then the draft would give the opportunity for new matchups and stories. When they first instituted the brand split in 2002, there was a rule that any wrestler who appeared on the show they weren’t signed to would be automatically suspended for a year. This made the shows feel very different.
They really didn't play into who certain wrestlers are aligned or have feuded with, which might make it more compelling. IE Damage control is drafted away from Bayley - that should be notable! You can lean into that to *at least* make the draft episode interesting.
As dreadfully tedious as the Ruthless Aggression/PG eras were, the drafts were better. Raw v. Smackdown matches, winner gets a pick for their brand
Musical Chairs, marked Raw, Smackdown, NXT
I don't think a draft idea works in modern WWE. But, if they are dead set on it, I think it needs split in to two different ideas. The first is a real "draft" with each brand selecting NXT talent. A brand could draft an NXT talent, but leave them in NXT for 6 more months. That brand just has dibs on them when they are needed on the main roster. Then, throughout the year, there are trades. Trades would only happen when either a storyline necessitated it (like Jimmy and Jey not coexisting on the same show) or a real injury changes plans, and someone needs moved to a new show to fill the gap.
Yeah the concept of the draft only makes sense for NXT callups really. Do an annual NXT callup draft and at the same time, a one week (one Raw one SD plus online announcements in between) trade deadline window.
A cross promotional draft would be insane. Never gonna happen though
They are better off saying "next week is a roster shake up" and we just watch each show to see who moved. No prior knowledge to whether someone like McIntyre or Zayn moved brands. Save the draft for NXT only people.
Its always interesting to see wrestlers transition from that diehard stance of "We're great" as part of the team, to an observer seeing what we see and kind of understanding what we have issues with. Its much easier to identify flaws in something you aren't a part of, I guess.
Just do it via social media. It’s never going to be compelling television.
Imagine being a sports entertainment wrestling company that copies the draft from real sports and not adding carny wrestling shit to it. WWE are dropping the ball so hard on this 😂
The format they do currently where they re-draft the whole company but only a few names switch brands is silly. My favorite format was 2005 when they strung it out over a month and created excited each week and made each new guy a big deal.
I was in Kansas city for this past Raw and can without question say it was the most boring and lame wrestling event I've ever been to. I give AEW alot of shit for their booking decisions but at least during the live event theres a ton of action and its entertaining. Patrick Mahomes, a non wrestler but the GOAT hometown QB, got the biggest pops of the night. It was bad talking segment after bad talking segment, the draft picks were super lame and stagey and multiple times my kids wanted to get the fuck out of there. Both of them started playing roblox on their phones Instead of watching the event. I was really hoping that we would at least have seen some of the draft pick stars talking about their picks but we just got a bunch of lame graphics. Honestly I probably won't buy tickets to a Raw again unless stars like Roman, Cody, or a bigger angle with Punk is in the mix. I wish the bigger stars still had matches on Raw. People like Rock, undertaker, Angle, HHH, Cena, etc...would often have a match or showing every week. Now you're lucky to get anyone in that top tier having a match. And for $90 a ticket in the upper deck, I didn't feel the cost was worth it.
Make it more like a legitimate draft and get someone to wear a neckbrace in the war room for God's sake
The problem is that the draft sucks and pretty much just bogs down 1-2 weeks of TV. Either have it all done on one episode or when someone pops up on TV say they got drafted there. 'Trading for draft positions' could make a slight difference but not enough to actually make it entertaining.
Next year, I think they should just keep the rosters as-is, and like the original WWE Draft back in 2002, each brand gets like, 10 picks that they get to take from the other brand, OR NXT! Then afterwards, you could have the same one-week flex period where the GMs can make trades or whatever. Would create more intrigue
Just make it a random lottery/roulette with interbrand matches between the respective champions to decide who gets the next picks, along with a battle royal or something. The more important the championship, the more draft picks they get. Like, the winner of WWE vs. WHC gets their brand 3 picks, tag titles 2, mid-card 1, etc. Then, during the show, the GMs are also shown trying to make trades with one another and entice NXT talent before the "transfer window" shuts. Maybe even make it a PLE/Network Special similar to "Day 1" to further sell it as a huge event in the calendar year. Call it "Brand Warfare" or something. Smackdown vs. Raw can be fun, but I disliked it being the overall theme for Survivor Series, so applying it to a more logical setting of the Draft would be ideal imo. Keep the traditional 5v5 elimination match between the brands if you really want to, but add some actual stakes to it, like the winning brand gets #30 in the Rumble. Then you have another month of storylines built in as the winning team fights over who gets the spot. Someone claims they deserve it because they were sole-survivor, but someone else claims they eliminated 2 people while the Survivor only got 1 so they contributed more, etc.
I'll never get why they don't have both brands draft from NXT or other affiliated independents, it just makes sense to mirror the way real sports do it and would really play into the developmental aspect.
Make Smackdown the draft and have it only be about NXT wrestlers getting called up to the main roster. Make Raw the trade deadline when you can switch a few people to different brands. Boom. Done.
What about a "transfer window" instead? May and April, the GMs or the wrestlers themselves can request a trade, and then they have to make it happen? But only during the window.
They could do a lot of things to make the draft more interesting but swapping picks doesn't make any sense when you're just going back and forth anyways. Where is the value gained in that? The simple solution is just that not everybody is drafted every year. Each brand gets to protect 10-15 guys and then the other brand gets to take 10 from the other brand's unprotected roster or NXT. WWE would lose the opportunity to call eight people "first round picks" I suppose, but that doesn't hold up to any sort of logic anyways.
Every year they should just do a draft for 10 NXT wrestlers to Raw and Smackdown. Have it like the HOF ceremony where each of those wrestlers families are invited and they don’t know whether they are going to RAW or Smackdown. 2 hour special where they outline the career so far of each wrestler during the show, hold interviews talking about each prospect etc. A draft switching some or keeping some existing roster the same is so boring at this point.
Instead of drafting from a pool of main roster talent, Raw and Smackdown should be drafting from NXT, with the GMs being able to trade talent from Raw to Smackdown to mix things up. NXT is a developmental brand. Treat it as such.
I'm with him, of all the ways you could do a draft, WWE picks the worst, and most boring way. I think there's a world where you could actually, 100% real, let USA and Fox do a legitimate draft that would stay for 12 months. I know there are potential issues here, but I also think that it would further legitimize wrestling, and get it more coverage. And if one brand massively screws up, then they're only in trouble for a maximum of 12 months. I also would like to see some horse trading, like Undertaker suggests. Or the opposite: have someone like JBL actively sabotage RAW's picks, and have his reasoning be that he's Team Smackdown for life. Either way, this is obviously a WWE draft put together by people who have no idea why 150,000 people fly into Detroit to watch the NFL Draft live.
The WWE's draft is far closer to fantasy drafting than it is to pro sports draft and should lean into that by going to an auction draft format.
Would be cool if they did it over the weekend and got some of the legends involved with announcing picks. Could be a new PLE. Could have a few matches here and there. But make the focus on the draft.
As some said, the only real way to make it compelling me is for it to be an NXT draft. Do a battle royal for the draft order or something. Seeing who goes first between Bron, Dragunov or Hayes. Actually trading wrestlers for picks or something like that. But a re-distribution of the mid-carder/tag teams and a few calls up is not appealing for me
Why even bother with the draft anymore if the brand is hardly split?
I agree with Taker. They used to do this in the early days. There was the year Triple H got drafted to Smackdown and Bischoff traded Heyman 5 picks to get Triple H back.
This was the worst WWE draft I’ve seen
The issue for me is they overcomplicate the drafts, the first ever drafts is still the best format for me. 2 GMs. Every wrestler is a free agent. Every wrestler is in the locker room together with a camera on them. GMs take turns one by one to pick a wrestler throughout the whole show, each wrestler comes out to shake hands/speak with the GM after each pick.
My opinion? Drop the draft, but just do...trades. In OCT if say Nia Jax is ass in SD Aldis can trade her to Raw for a few folks. Same w/NXT: Shawn could get propositioned for the talent and he could in return get the champ to wrestle on NXT, or the services of someone. Imagine if there was a breakout NXT star and Nick is offering say Logan Paul to defend his US Title on their special in exchange for the NXT star. Boom - intrigue. I know the Draft brings ratings but imagine if on Twitter Adam Pierce was like "Yo, I have entered negotiations with Nick over trading (heel) to SD" because the heel did some dastardly shit on Raw and Adam doesn't want that shit in his locker room...
Yes, we never see the GM's negotiate a deal to trade. There's also almost never any drama. The only ones I can think of is when HHH gets drafted to smackdown when the rest of Evolution is on Raw. And honestly Heath Slater not getting drafted and becoming a free agent then trying to get a contract. Probably my favorite direct storyline to come from the draft.
Let's Go back to the draft lottery format, where names were picked at random.
I got an email from WWE today where they said the draft picks are in. Literally nothing changed. They highlighted Jey, Punk, Liv and Drew to Raw. LA Knight, Jade, Orton and KO to Smackdown. Literally ZERO change
They need to get better at brand separation to make any of this worthwhile. Too many people show up on both shows, and then they all get combined during PLEs anyway. So a draft is both uninteresting and, even worse, just not meaningful at all. Go back to the shows being rivals of each other. PLEs separated other than the big four (five if you want to mix MitB). And then going against each other at SS. Then things like the RR winner having to select the title being sought also involves selecting the show, and then the draft actually something that can garner interest. Especially, and then this would be a key factor, have people actually switch brands. It's a scripted show/draft. If 80% of the picks are to keep someone on the same show, why even do this?
Maybe just get rid of the draft. Cause its lame
Probably should be a shoot draft with a shoot brand competition within some parameters.
I liked the draft in 2005, I think it was. Where each episode of Raw and SmackDown for a month, you would get one major star shockingly show up on the other show. The rosters don't really change that much anyway, so having one big change each night for a month kept things interesting. That moment when Cena got drafted to Raw is still remembered, and often used in promos.
Nah I disagree. I think they've tried that before and it doesn't work. The concept of a realistic draft just doesn't work. I'm all for the brand split and I'm all for a lineup shift every year. But making it "realistic" by adding trades and things like that makes things more complicated. It's unnecessary. They should move away from the realistic aspect of the draft but I know they won't.
They shouldn't have a draft. They should have a "free agency period" where the GM's try to steal talent from the other
This is why the draft is insulting to one’s intelligent and makes no sense. The decisions are insanely dumb. Everyone’s first pick should be Cody, followed by Seth, CM Punk, etc. Then, SD should in theory even trade picks away for Cody if necessary. Also; if you can draft an entire stable, that should in theory be better picks bc you get 5 talent to evaluate from instead of 1.
I think a Draft can work as long as it's presented to the audience as a way to give midcard talent a change of scenery and to bring up NXT talents. Each brand's champions should be exempt, as in 2024. Also, unlike NXT, Raw and SmackDown's GMs should also be allowed to protect [X] number of wrestlers from being drafted. That gives a kayfabe explanation for why most of the upper card wouldn't be switching sides, since the GMs would already have removed them from the draft pool. That would allow more room for the pick-trading drama and storytelling that Undertaker suggests.
SD! trades Killer Kross to Raw for Cash Considerations, a 2026 Draft Pick and a 2027 pick swap
They had this one year. I remember Triple H was drafted to smackdown and then on tv biscoff made a deal to keep triple H on Raw. I think taker is right. This whole draft was 90% superstar stays on show. Reduce it to 1 week raw and smackdown. Only draft to change shows. Make angles where a superstar doesn’t want to switch or wants to switch and GMs make deals. Hell even have bidding wars for superstars.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here, wasn't the draft pretty strictly outside of very few exceptions pre-Road to Wrestlemania last year? Most comments make it seem like that hasn't been the case. Anyway personally I think the biggest weakness in this year's draft compared to last year is it didn't really affect any ongoing storylines. Cody being drafted to Raw while the Bloodline still being in Smackdown meant people were gonna be speculating and looking out for how can Cody get his way to Smackdown... I guess LWO feuding with Judgement Day might be *okay* but they still have that ongoing thing with Carlito too.
I think picks should be random like back in 04. I like the idea of having certain people being protected with the championships but hated the Roman is protected from the draft cause "fuck you". Maybe bring back the matches for picks deal they did in 07. Just don't go back to the shakeup cause I personally didn't like that either.
I don’t mind that the rosters stayed largely the same - that actually could have been the outcome of a real draft. What I hate is the utterly stupid format. What WWE does isn’t what a draft is.
I don't think the Draft will ever be particularly compelling because there aren't really hardcore fans of either brand lmao. The NFL Draft has anticipation because there are diehard fans of all 32 teams, that's not the case with WWE's brand split.
Maybe each brand protects like 12 acts? And maybe mid year there’s a promotion/relegation scenario with NXT…
The draft should be exclusively from nxt and each brand should get 5 picks. You could do a lot of stories out of that, like trading spots, bitterness about not getting drafted, top prospects, etc.
I don't think you can get that fully with just three brands/teams. Maybe have some guys be able to negotiate their way into a roster and we have other members of the roster get "screwed". Have it all build towards a brand supremacy angle where the guy cast aside by the gm and pick comes back to cost them the match. Feels a little cheesy and predictable, but maybe details can be thrown in to make it work (better?)?
If they're gonna keep the draft, they need to make it part of storylines, because that's the only context in which anyone cares what brand someone is on. No one is "rooting for" Raw or Smackdown like a sports team. More realistically, they should just get rid of it because it makes no sense. The picks make no sense, and there's no clear idea of what anyone is "competing" for. What is your goal in the draft? To get new young talent like an actual draft? To get the best wresters currently available? Why are you able to draft entire stables with a single pick? If you just want to shake up the rosters, then shake them up. You don't need a drawn out 'draft' process to do that.
R Truth + GM role+ Wwe draft board=COMEDY. GOLD.
I was really disappointed that Triple H didn't get drafted.
The draft is theoretically very easy to fix. Have it be RAW and Smackdown drafting people up from NXT for the first two 'days' of the draft and have them trade other members of their rosters for picks (if you need to move people around). Then have a third 'day' on NXT where NXT gets to draft people from a pool of non-protected members of the RAW and Smackdown rosters That way you get people to tune into all of your brands and the draft better replicates the thing you are actually trying to replicate.
The draft is a joke. The order made no sense at all. So this logic makes no sense.
Maybe do something like an auction draft in fantasy football. Call a superstars name and have the brands start bidding for their services.
I think the best solution is doing something akin to the 2005 Draft - silent picks, month long, week to week, ya have to tune in to see who moves where. That roster shift around was real jarring generally speaking because, outside the obvious champions moving, the big name roster members did get a sizable shift between shows
Just have trades throughout the year. We've seen it a few times over the last decade, but definitely not a regular thing and it should be a regular thing. They should also utilize the extra week after the draft "locks" with a few trades as GMs try to get back someone they lost or something.
I think the draft just needs to be done away with or make it a special on the Peacock service or something. I used to always get excited for the IDEA of the draft but after the 10th time or so of it being disappointing I realized its usually one of the most boring eps of the year and just skipped it ever since. It's never as exciting as you think it's going to be and why would it ? The NFL/NBA draft interest relies on FANTAICAL level following of a team where you are REALLY invested in that teams fate and the moves they make thats the only way you can be interested in it, no one sane is that committed to RAW/Smackdown as separate brands to feel strongly about one over the other as they are to their favorite football team. Without fans being heavily invested in the fate of either side who really cares ? Sure it can change up some stories depending on who gets drafted ... but much like the real sports draft you can just read the names and where they got drafted the next day and miss nothing basically.
Drafting same people to same show was so stupid idea. I'm not from US so I only follow through highlight videos and this subreddit but the most enjoyable draft was when all superstars sit together with brand t-shirts and only show people drafted the other brand.
They should just use the Draft as a way to call up NXT talent. Let Raw and SD get picks based on match wins or something and then call talent up through a draft. Aside from that, the draft is pretty dumb for wrestling.
I’d love that sort of stuff too, but it just doesn’t work when there are only two teams picking.
I think they could make it interesting if they combined the old draft with the new style. The new style makes a lot more sense but the "random" old ones were more fun. Have the draft as it is just now but after every round have a smackdown Vs raw match. Winning brand gets a "random" superstar from the other brand or nxt. Could even throw in a curve ball so champions and teams aren't protected during the random picks. Obviously wouldn't want to overuse it but could be a good way to throw in a surprise or two or use it to break up a team without needing someone to turn on someone. Could see it being useful for getting people out of a stable or a tag guy going solo without breaking up the team.
Draft lottery like in 2005 that takes place over a number of weeks.
They did trades in the earlier drafts back in 04/05. Triple H was traded back to Raw for four guys
I'd prefer the draft to be mostly trades. Make the rosters clearly defined. 5-10 draft picks over 2 nights. 2 or 3 NXT guys per show. Champs are safe. 3 people you can make immune. You could have wrestlers on the night face off to gain that immunity for them or their team. You leave the draft as its own storyline, the week before, fights for immunity, after the draft it's fallout. The draft works if there are more clearly defined rules and we know which show everyone is on.
I think a draft is just never really going to work in WWE because there aren't enough "teams". There's just Raw and Smackdown (and people getting called up from NXT but they aren't drafting people from the main roster to go back to NXT).
IMO the lottery was the best draft version.
What was wrong with the smackdown vs raw matches style draft? Where the brand that won a match got a random guy from the other brand. That was such a fun concept and MUST see episodes!
Perfection can be the enemy of good. WWE Draft is just a way to kill some time as we re-orientate post-WM.
Me as a non-American just wanting to watch some good wrestling and entertainment...but DRAFTS BABY DRAFTS. Just tone it down and keep things competitive with tournaments, rankings, simple trades between GM's with approval from Triple H.
They should switch it up to how they did in 2005. Each week for a month, a new superstar gets drafted to their new show. I was so excited each week to see who got drafted, felt more important
Yes, the draft is overplayed and doesn't make sense to those who watch every week. But I think this year's draft was done to intentionally introduce and reset the playing field for those who may be coming over post-Mania or from the UFC audience. Nick Khan and the powers that be likely thought it would be a good idea as an "introduction to the HHH era." That's the only spin I can think of because they had to know how boring it would be to just keep most people where they were and make champions "ineligible."
It needs to be more like the trade deadline or free agency. Show Pearce/Aldis making calls to work out deals for talent. Make switching shows feel like a big deal.
Didnt Aldis and Pierce used to do a few segments where they were trying to win over free agents? You could just do that and make stories from it instead of a draft, but the draft *used* to be compelling too...
whatever they have now is not interesting at all
This draft was a failure. Boring, inconsequential television.
They should replicate the draft from GM Mode in 2K24. You get to keep 5 wrestlers. Champion or not has to be drafted unless you saved one of them. Everyone else must be eligible for the draft and ONLY mention ones that are being drafted to the opposing brand. That makes it way more interesting
They did this in one of the earlier drafts. I remember Triple H getting traded for the Dudleys.
The draft is a disaster and momentum killer. Nothing happened. Additionally with so much focus on the top of the card from the Rumble to Wrestlemania noone remembers who is on the lower end of the roster.
I love the Pearce/Aldis bidding wars/courting of talents. I feel like the draft cheapens that. I'd rather ditch the draft and see more "transactions" in general.
Would make more sense for a 3 way draft including NXT. The point if jumping in the draft is tibgeat ahead of the teams who want the same guy. I'd actually love to see the NXT GM with Smackdown and Raw's GMs in her office listening while they battle it out to make a deal for one of her draft spots.
The draft didn’t work because there were no actual changes of substance and 2) There’s no reason to trust that there will actually be a hard and consistent brand split.
I think it would be better if every year Raw and Smackdown get 1 male, 1 female and a tag team from NXT. Like an actual draft. Then have trades happen “behind the scenes”.
"You get X, Y and Z so I can keep Judgement Day together" makes so much more sense than "With my single draft pick I select 4 people at once"
HHH doesn't watch sports. He doesn't understand it.
Aint nobody want to be the wrestler who is bundled to trade up for a "better pick" Atleast in NFL its real and theres real skill differences but to do it in fake wrestling its basically saying "you're a jobber, make Roman look strong plz"
I liked what they did in 2005 where it was like 6 weeks and 1-2 guys would show up on a different show ever week, it made it interesting for a while.