Best and Worst WWE Draft Decisions

Hello everyone and welcome back to Talk Wrestling World, I hope you are all well and good! So last night was the night we had all been waiting for. The one for the past month we have been counting down the days to, the WWE Draft. After years of RAW and Smackdown sharing WWE superstars the roster was split in half last night when Shane McMahon and Smackdown General manager Daniel Bryan and Stephanie McMahon and RAW general manger Mick Foley made their official picks for their shows. Not only was every single superstar drafted throughout the night the first ever episode of Smackdown Live aired with a number of interesting matches booked throughout the two hour show including a monster main event that saw Dean Ambrose once again defend his WWE Championship against Seth Rollins only twenty four hours after defending against the architect and five days before that huge Shield triple threat. In today's blog post we are going to be taking a look at some of the highlights from the WWE Draft show/ Smackdown Live and I will be listing what I think we should take away from the show over all and the decisions made. I will over the next couple of weeks also be talking a little more on how my blog posts will be written and uploaded due to the changes happening and over the next month or so I will be commenting loads here on my blog about the WWE Draft and the early stages of it. It's gonna be a nice lengthy post so go grab yourself a cup of tea! As usual, any recent blog posts will be linked bellow including all the Battleground Predictions that have so far been uploaded. Finally, you can let me know what you thought of the show and the draft picks by leaving a comment bellow or by tweeting me at @TezangiVictoria.

The Balor Club has Arrived 

I just had to start off this blog post by talking one of my favourite draft picks of the night and one of my favourite overall moments of the night, the announcement that Finn Balor will be joining the Monday night RAW roster. After having to wait a very long time both the fans and Finn Balor were left over the moon when the demon was picked as the fifth draft pick and the third for RAW. Throughout the past thew weeks Finn Balor has been one of the favourites rumoured to be making the jump up to the main roster during the brand split. Since arriving in NXT Balor has made a huge impact taking the developmental territory to the next level. From longest reigning NXT champion to the first superstar to compete in a steel cage match inside an NXT ring, the Irish star has risen to stardom and become one of the most popular and must see stars in NXT history. Now, he makes his way to Monday night RAW and the Internet wrestling community could not be happier. Later on in the night we also learnt that Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows were also drafted to Monday night RAW leaving Styles going solo over on Smackdown and while that little fact hurts my heart a little the pure fact that Balor, Anderson, and Gallows are all on the same show makes me very very happy. We have the bullet club together on the same roster and that makes me extremely excited. Future storyline's are going to be very interesting and very entertaining. I know I'm certainly not the only one growing with excitement over these two big draft picks and I cannot wait to see how stories develop over the next thew months with these changes effective. 

The Biggest Mistake Of the Night? 

There were a couple of moments during the draft show last night where I questioned the sanity of the WWE. As usual there were a number of big mistakes made throughout the show as expected however I think a lot of you reading this will agree that one of the biggest mistakes made of the night was drafting Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens on the same show. Everyone and I literally mean everyone I spoke to before and after the Draft show was expecting to see these two guys go their separate ways. It made perfect sense and seemed like the most logical decision.These two have been feuding literally for years and so for them to part ways at the brand extension just made sense. It would have put an official end to their rivalry and allowed them to full move onto something new, different, and exciting. Now, I personally would have drafted Sami to RAW and Owens to Smackdown as would I know a lot of people have done also. Again, it appeared to be the most logical decision and also one of the more popular decisions. It's very clear to me and many others that Owens was the perfect for the Smackdown roster. Throughout the night cracks really did begin to show for Shane and Daniel, over on RAW the roster began to shape up brilliantly with big big new fresh stars taking over, the likes of Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Cesaro, and Finn Balor all took centre stage and while Smackdown did have those huge names such as AJ Styles, Randy Orton, and of course John Cena the roster needed more fresh faced male superstars and Kevin Owens would have been the perfect fit. Not only would he have found much more success on the Smackdown roster competing with many of the names drafted but he would have done the show itself a lot of good providing that edge and new era feel. Smackdown really have missed out on a big name here and a big opportunity to make a star out of Kevin Owens.

NXT Stars Make a Splash!

It was announced on Monday that six NXT superstars would be drafted to either RAW or Smackdown and last night we got to see those big six named finally announced after much speculation. We have already touched on the fact that former NXT Champion, Finn Balor was the first of the six stars to be drafted throughout the night three female competitors were announced with Nia Jax joining the Monday night RAW roster and Carmella and Alexa Bliss were announced as new faces added to the Smackdown roster. I was very very happy that we had more than one women called up. All three of these women have played such a huge role in NXT. They are three of the most popular and gifted women on the NXT Roster. Bliss and Carmella in particular have been waiting a very long time to get their call up. In the past year they have worked extremely hard to prove their worth competing in stand out matches that have kept the high expectations and standards of the NXT Women's division. Nia Jax is another talent who has been breaking down barriers since the day she arrived. After seeing her perform live at NXT Takeover London I have been completely obsessed with Jax and it's been great over the past seven months or so seeing how she has improved and developed. I know so many people were pretty pissed off that Bayley didn't get her call up last night but Jax is also someone who really does deserve her place on the main roster and it was very interesting seeing her target the women's champion already. We also found out that American Alpha and Mojo Rawley also drafted to Tuesday night Smackdown, both picks that I was expecting to see happen. American Alpha are without a doubt one of the most popular tag teams in all of pro wrestling at the moment and throughout the past month or so they have been one of the top rumoured NXT Talents to make the jump up to the main roster. I tweeted last night that I marked out like crazy for these guys and I'm still so so happy for them, they really do deserve it greatly and I cannot wait to see how their main roster career works out for them. As for Mojo, he was another talent that I was expecting to get drafted last night. If I'm being honest however, I do think Tye Dillinger should have been called up instead, but thats just my personal opinion. 

Split ups Shocks 

A WWE Draft is always there to ensure that split ups will occur. One of the most memorable tag team split ups in WWE history was without a doubt the split of the Dudley Boyz. Now, I mentioned last night on twitter that I really did want to see these guys separated again. Since the last time we saw Bubba Ray and D-Von separated a lot has changed and Bubba in particular really has showed more sides of him over in TNA, sides that I would have loved to have seen in this new era, something that would have happened if Bubba was drafted on his own to Monday night RAW. We did however see a slight split up in the Social Outcasts with Bo Dallas and Curtis Axle drafted to RAW and Heath Slater going over to Smackdown, witch I was expecting to see anyway but what I wasn't happy about was seeing the Wyatt's separated. Again, one of the worse decisions made of the night, it made no logical sense what so ever to separate these guys at this time. At the current moment, the Wyatt family are stronger than they have been in a very very long time and so drafting Strowman on his own to RAW really was a dumb move in my opinion. There is no doubt in my mind that that Strowman has plenty of potential and star quality. I'm confident the WWE will kick things off strong for him over on RAW and there are plenty of potential big name opponents and storyline's for him there. However, he is going to be very very exposed and I worry for him competing on his own. Things might look great at the start but this is a draft pick that I'm confident the WWE are going to regret later on and towards the end of the year things are not going to be looking strong for Strowman. I think he's really going to struggle on his own and his character is going to suffer a real knock as the months go by. It was also pretty interesting seeing Anderson and Gallows separated from Styles but I think this is a case of bigger and better things heading their way.

Is the Better show Clear? 

Throughout the night I live tweeted commenting on every single thing that happened during both the televised and non televised WWE Draft decisions. In the build up to the draft night I spent a great deal of time creating my ow mock drafts and also taking a look at what everyone else was thinking in regards to the draft. I cam across many people who were thinking along the same lines as I was. Plenty of names I suggested going to RAW many of you guys reading this agreed and the same goes with Smackdown. When the show started last night the drafts really did kick start nice and strong. I was surprised very early on that Sasha Banks wasn't drafted sooner and I was even more surprised to see her not drafted to Smackdown, it was one of the picks I was most confident on last night so that little twist was unexpected for me. It was also interesting seeing the type of names added early on to
the Smackdown roster in comparison to the names on RAW. While Stephanie and Foley focused on capturing the young, up and coming big stars of the future with their first four names all former NXT talents, Over on Smackdown it appeared as though the WWE were targeting the big name veterans such as John Cena and Randy Orton during the early stages. I know there are plenty of spilt opinions on the fact that Cena and Orton have been drafted to the same show. As the night progressed it did become clear who had the stronger and better overall roster. We knew that RAW was going to have a bigger roster because of it being the flagship show and the fact that it's a three hour show every single week but I was not expecting RAW to be as heavily dominated. We have some great names over on Smackdown, there is no doubt about that with the likes again of Orton, Cena, Ambrose, Styles and of course Bray Wyatt but it just doesn't touch what we have over on RAW. RAW does feel like the more fresh, exciting, and promising show and as the night went on the decisions just got worse and worse. It doesn't feel equal at all and there are plenty of guys over on RAW that should have gone to RAW, Cesaro, Banks, and Owens in particular. I was watching this last night just thinking to myself that Smackdown really are going to have to pull out some big names. I do think that the NXT stars did help out a lot and you never know, Smackdown could truly end up being the underdog show and it could be great but at the moment it's perfectly clear what show is the bigger and better. 

So that is what I thought of the WWE draft overall. I tried to focus on five main points today but over the next couple of weeks or so I do plan on talking a little more about the draft and the decisions made on the show last night. For now, I would love to know what you guys thought so feel free to leave a comment bellow or tweet me at @TezangiVictoria. 





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts