Smackdown - WWE Draft (Night 1)
 

Here is the elgible talent for Night 1's draft pool

For every 2 stars, Raw gets 3 since it's longer

Teams/Factions count as 1 draft pick

Brands can draft talent already on their show

Undrafted stars will be free agents



Asuka
Sasha Banks
Bianca Belair
Dana Brooke
Humberto Carrillo
Angel Garza
Drew Gulak
Heavy Machinery (Otis & Tucker)
The Hurt Business (Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin, Cedric Alexander and MVP)
Mickie James
Lucha House Party (Kalisto, Gran Metalik and Lince Dorado)
Drew McIntyre
The Miz & John Morrison
Murphy
Rey & Dominik Mysterio
Naomi
The New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods)
Roman Reigns
Ricochet
Seth Rollins
Mandy Rose
Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax
Shorty G
AJ Styles
Jey Uso

I haven't even really been following, so it's hard to say what I *want*, because I'm probably still not going to watch, but Seth Rollins really should go to SmackDown. I know people are expecting a Seth/AJ swap or something, but they should be on the same show. I like the idea of Reigns and Rollins sharing space as the top heels -- either allied or icy. Styles and Bryan as the top babyfaces of that show would make sense too. Sets up SmackDown to be the best program on television, at least in theory.

Angel Garza to SmackDown makes a lot of sense too. Get him away from Andrade and that locked block of Aleister Black/Zelina Vega/Andrade/Charlotte on Raw. I mean, they could all go to SmackDown, but Angel Garza and his youthful appeal would be much better on FOX, I feel. And he doesn't take up much room.

I predict Big E gets drafted as a singles act, which is fucking nuts. Because why can't you just draft all three and then have Big E be a singles act anyway? You're getting more talent for the pick of one, but they pulled this shit last time when they separated Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross or something. The only two I would even consider splitting as picks would be Rey Mysterio, with absolutely no intention of drafting Dominik (as a shoot -- nothing against the kid). But that's really neither here nor there.

Shorty G is going to be unsigned, I think. He's the one I'm pretty sure about. This will be used to slip him into further nothingness or he'll get mad and try and do something about it.

I'd like SmackDown to end up with the serious wrestling acts. Raw should get the overly WWE acts. Bray Wyatt can do his three characters in each of the hours and I will continue not to watch him. But I think they need to streamline the tones of these shows and make them a bit more different from each other (although you're still inevitably going to get two WWE products).

Lol why would a show draft somebody already on their show?

The half eligible to be drafted tonight and half Monday was the stupidest thing last year, so of course they are gonna do that again smh.

I'm sure they will do the annual switch of Miz and K.O.

Ricochet, Crews, Humberto, Peyton, Hurt Business, and Garza to SD.
Strowman, Wyatt, Lucha House Party, Bliss, Sami, Styles, and Gulak to Raw.

No real reason for those picks, but there usually isn't much logic to these drafts anymore anyways.

Also, if they are randomly going to have Adam Pearce make matches, then they should just bring GMs back.

It gives them a reason/option to have a little more star power on the shows. I mean, are they just going to pretend USA executives and the Fox Football robot are making the picks again??? :rofl:

LOL OMG they are legit just picking who they already have

:lol: at the first three picks for RAW being people they already had on their brand.

"Its time to SHAKE THINGS UP!" :rofl:

I mean it’s inevitable shows are gonna pick who they already have if they are gonna carry on with completely re-drafting the rosters every year.

Still a weird show structure though. Having a few people switch via lottery every year wasn’t a bad setup.

They really should have made it so that you couldn't pick people from your own brand and include NXT and 205 Live to deepen the pool for some surprises.

That's also back to back years where RAW's first round picks were just their own guys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_WWE_Draft

Ouch at that welt on Sheamus' back.

Rocket strap Big E as soon as possible

Sheamus vs. Big E was pretty good but hope whoever owned that black car has some really good insurance since it got destroyed by both guys.

Hope it was Corbin's car lol

That Reigns promo was great. He's been on an amazing roll on the mic ever since his heel turn.

:lol: at RAW getting Styles back despite willingly trading him away a few months ago.

Guess he couldn't stand being around Heyman again.

So far 6 picks in for RAW and they only really got 1 new person in return via the Naomi pick.

Nia Jax & Shayna were already RAW brand talent prior to winning the Women's tag belts and Styles was someone they already had before and actively got rid of only to get him back now.

So the big changes so far are:


AJ to RAW
Naomi to RAW

Seth to SD
Bianca to SD

HOLY SHIT LARS CAME BACK!

Lars baby...

My guess is AJ feuds w/ Drew for a few months or gets the Drew WM feud (depending on who else goes to RAW...Braun?)

My man...

His gimmick should be he just beats the hell out of people for gay rights.

Surprised WWE brought back Lars Sullivan considering all the stuff that came out against him and Vince souring on his big push plans.

Maybe Braun stays on SD so he can feud w/ LARS

Not a Lars fan these days, dumbass fucker

LOL why the fuck would Raw draft Ricochet in the 3rd round when they never use him lol

I shit myself today.

Naomi going to Raw is really surprising, actually. Either they’re going to scrap their husband/wives stay together rule or Jimmy is going to Raw. It’ll be interesting to see if Jey goes too or ends up as a singles on SmackDown.

:lol: at two of RAW's 3rd round picks being more people they already had.

This draft show might be the lamest ever in terms of picks made.

Same with Bianca, but I expect Private Party to drop the belts to The Hurt Business on Raw. Or maybe another team that gets locked into Raw (Miz & Morrison, etc.).

God I need to shower, I really smell like shit.

I'm guessing once the Roman feud is done he will disappear until Jimmy is ready to come back, and they will show up on Raw as.free agents somehow.

UGH at Seth, Rey and Dominik on same brand

*Street Profits :D

I’m guessing the relationship thing doesn’t matter right now since they’re not on the road and probably won’t be until Mania season if that.

By then they’ll have shifted people around again anyway

The best format they ever had was the 2005 draft, but they could have very easily done an episode of SmackDown where Roman Reigns was confronted by Seth Rollins. Or at least given us AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins before Styles left for Raw.

All that's left is for the Blue Brand to draft Murphy and they can experience the same terrible telenovela storyline as RAW did.

Leaves Murphy all alone with Aalyah to do Murphy things :naughty:

Actually, that’s a very good point. I forget how fucked up the States is and how they’re basically the same show anyway right now and probably for a long while yet.

Rey and Dominik on Smackers is smart. They’ll make great faces for Roman to bully. And Cesaro is a great choice to work with Dominik. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the belts go to Rey and Son to Roman and Seth.

Murphy needs to stay the fuck away from Seth. He’s not dynamic enough for that sort of spot. He can be a body somewhere, but he needs some life. He’d be a great fit for NXT.

Somebody is gonna be sucking Lars Sullivan's dick. That's for sure!

:| at the SD Women's title match ending via DQ.

The amount of DQs and no contests done by WWE this year has to be a new record for a single year by now.

They've gotten creatively bankrupt when it comes to the amount of times they've failed to deliver a real ending to their big matches on TV. Even NXT is slowly starting to get into that bad habit. Almost no reason to be invested in their big matches anymore when they fail most of the time to deliver with them.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Fiend is in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SmackDown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SmackDown</a> but hasn’t ever competed on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SmackDown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SmackDown</a> ?</p>&mdash; DavKind (@DavKind76) <a href="https://twitter.com/DavKind76/status/1314735372379852803?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 10, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Murphy is Kenny Omega without the goofy faces.

SD tag title match was pretty good even if WWE ended up giving away the result by having New Day make their surprise return as a group and challenge for the belts.

:lol: at SD losing their tag champs now.

Well there’s New Day split up, but not really because Woods and Kofi clearly are gonna have to be around to defend/drop the SmackDown belts.

So whoever is running Raw is a fucking idiot, let's just NOT draft Big E even though he would come with Kofi and Woods, cause that makes any fucking sense...

RAW legit picked more of their own guys than they did with SD guys for tonight's Draft show.

Even with their infamous history of bad drafting, the NY Jets and Cleveland Browns would have done a better job with WWE's Draft than team Red Brand did tonight.

Damn at breaking up New Day

breaking up Heavy Machinery also

Be funny if the Street Profits get drafted to SmackDown now and they and New Day just casually trade belts.

This is exactly why WWE is so bad, is there nobody in that writing room that asked "why are we having a draft if most people are going to stay on the same show"?

Or "why wouldn't Raw also want Big E if they are drafting New Day"?

Just go back to the fucking tumblers with the draft picks being "random". Yes they aren't really random, but at least it gives them a logical out as to why only Otis got drafted to Smackdown and not Tucker.

Not sure Otis knows how a lawsuit or courts actually work.

Poor fellow, he's probably losing his MitB contract and that sweet looking MitB lunchbox very soon.

“We at Fox want to keep Otis”

”What about Tucker, they can be drafted together”

”Nah, fuck Tucker”

There’s really no logic to any of this. Still not as bad as Alexa and Nikki being drafted to the same show in separate picks last year.

Undrafted

Dana Brooke (could have been picked with Mandy)
Humberto Carrillo
Drew Gulak
Tucker (could have been drafted with Otis)
Mickie James
Lucha House Party (Kalisto, Gran Metalik and Lince Dorado)
Murphy
Shorty G

They should all ask for their release since WWE thinks so little of them.

LOL that was bad.

Still the worst ever was Raw drafting Strowman, but not the other 3 Wyatt members, because why would you want to get 4 for 1 when you can just get 1?

So the people changing brands are:

TO SD:
Seth Rollins
Bianca Belair
Rey Mysterio
Dominik Mysterio

To RAW:
Miz & Morrison
Xavier & Kofi
AJ Styles
Naomi

Dana was drafted to RAW in the final batch tonight

Yeah they really need to do some serious tweaks for the next draft since the current format is way too comical than it should be.

Like do a sports expansion style draft where each brand can protect just a few guys but everyone else is fair game and not allow the ability to pick people from their own brand. Add in NXT and 205 Live to deepen the draft pool and undrafted people staying on their brands and you get two nights of shows full of big surprises and brands with actual big shakeups done.

Could even do some draft and post-draft trades so its not mostly just the same people on a brand but now on a different show.

KO doing what he can to carry Bray in this match

I know he has a good entrance and good promos but I'm sorry, Bray just no-selling everything everyone does to him is not interesting.

Fiend vs. Owens was pretty good.

This week's Draft episode was also pretty good overall. RAW being as bad as last year's Draft at drafting was worth a bunch of laughs.

Only real sour points was the SD Women's title match and most of the actual Draft picks being duds in terms of real interest and lack of big surprises. New Day splitting up was the only real surprise from the picks made tonight.

Must have been too annoyed by the drafting of 2/3rds of New Day to have heard that.

List of people who've been able to get good matches out of Bray Wyatt so far:

Daniel Bryan

Even though its not really comparable, I'd add Cena to that list only because of how good their Firefly Fun House cinematic match was at Mania 36.

Pre-FF match I wouldn't add Cena since those matches he had against Bray were either bad or huge momentum killers for Bray.

I guess Apollo will finally be joining the New Day.

This is from over 3 years ago, btw.

Great.

Glad i was actually watching to see it happen.:rofl:

Remember when Bobby Lashley was drafted to RAW and he had to relinquish the ECW Championship because it was brand exclusive?

I swapped Big E for Apollo on one of the WWE games a few years back. Def gonna happen.

:roll:

DQ is a perfectly valid finish. Using it too much is a problem, but not ever using it is too. Way too many people on the internet feel like they're just waiting to complain about "non-finishes."

Was pretty easy to call Big E and Kofi & Woods being split up. Thought it would be Big E drafted away from them though.

WWE goes way overboard with that and no contests for finishes these days.

Bayley's last 2 high profile title matches both ended via DQ finish and WWE does several non-finishes to their matches almost weekly.

Maybe if you actually watched these shows regularly, you'd understand why this has become very tiring to constantly watch happen in WWE.

Talking Smack draft:

-Humberto Carrillo remains on Raw
-Murphy moves to SD
-Drew Gulak moves to Raw
-Kalisto remains on SD (but the rest of Lucha House Party went undrafted)
-Tucker moves to Raw, Heavy Machinery is officially split up

RIP Heavy Machinery

we'll get 3 months of new day and Apollo vs the hurt business before he shockingly turns on em

Needed someone for hurt business to bully after Retribution dies off

WWE use it in an attempt to drum up interest in a match with a conclusive ending but it doesn’t work when they do it repeatedly, and they do it at the end of a 15-20 minute match. By that point we’ve seen the match in full sans the ending so I have no interest in seeing the match even with an actual conclusion.

Example: Orton v Keith Lee

I’m not really a fan of the full draft concept. It forces the brands to re draft their own guys and that is always going to feel lacklustre. The way they’ve handled it this time might be the worst effort ever. Splitting tags that could have been drafted together, moving all components of a never-ending storyline over to the other brand, meh. The whole point is to create new, interesting match ups not move a storyline wholesale to another show. My interest in Seth on SD went through the floor knowing that the Murphy/Mysterios storyline is just going to continue.

Looks like they might be moving all the tag teams to Raw. Probably best for now as there’s no depth having split most of them up or the few that are on the shelf due to injury.

Moved to RAW

New Day
Miz & Morrison

Left on the board.
Dorado & Metalik

Keep Roode/Ziggler and Street Profits On Raw. Draft Nak/Cesaro and that’s a decent division.

Cycle in Hurt Business and RETRIBUTION here and there.

Nowhere near enough to split them over 2 shows.

100% this.

I said they should just go back to WWE lottery format, with the ping pong balls and tumbler thing.

The decisions to break up New Day and Heavy Machinery would be just as fucking stupid, but at least they would be logical in the lottery format of it being random.

Like seriously, why would Raw have the option to draft the entire New Day, and purposely say "well actually, we just want Kofi and Woods, but not the guy getting the best push of his career?" It's not like Raw doesn't have a 3 hour show to put on each week.

And if Big E is so terrible that you go out of your way to keep him off Raw, then why in the fuck would Smackdown use their VERY next pick to draft him.

Raw already indicated they didn't want him by specifically not drafting him. Why would Smackdown feel the need to pick him right away, when there is 0 danger that they will lose him to Raw?

The writers are either the stupidest assholes working in all of entertainment, or they think their fans are too dumb to realize that the shit they do makes no sense.

Either way, not one of them should be getting paid for their horrible writing.

I had the same thought too; the announcing of the picks is so lacklustre with Steph reading from a card. Wouldn’t you want it to be dynamic? The original draft felt like that with Flair and McMahon going tit-for-tat.

Framing The New Day picks as individual picks, having SD pick E, and Raw “fire back” by picking “former WWE Champion” Kofi Kingston makes sense. They could have held Xavier off from this given he’s just had a big lay off for injury and then he has a dilemma with his friends split.

Some of the consistency is weird too. Charlotte and Garza are both on the board while injured but Erik is listed with Ivar due to his injury (though that could just be a length of injury deal).