By Rick Morris
Fellow FDH
Lounge Dignitary Jake Digman had the great idea for a mock draft to coincide
with the WWE’s upcoming “brand extension.”
Here is the actual show itself:
Here’s a record
of what transpired. Both of us wanted to
take Smackdown in honor of our friend Ryan Ward, the new head writer of the
show, but I deferred to Jake since the idea for this segment was his. We flipped a coin to see who would start and
I won. We were each going to take our
General Manager first, knowing that we were locked in with Stephanie McMahon as
Raw Commissioner and Shane McMahon as Smackdown Commissioner. Seeking that Dario Cueto kind of vibe from
Lucha Underground, I wanted someone that I thought could be sufficiently smarmy
to pull off the role and, looking at the sidelined talent, I selected Tyson
Kidd for Raw GM. Jake countered with
HHH, envisioning him actually as a babyface GM, and, in so doing, ended up with
an extra useable wrestler to boot.
We drafted 20
regular rounds, where we explained our picks a bit and then progressed to a “speed
round” for the last part. I made 40
picks for Raw and Jake made 35 for Smackdown since Raw has (unfortunately) the
extra hour of programming to fill. In
fairness, I made my last five picks at the end.
Unlike the 2002 draft, we used a common-sense standard of who could be
drafted together. Tag teams,
manager-wrestler combos and factions need not be split up, but they could be –
and a few were.
I am happy with
both of the rosters selected as I feel that we both applied a lot of creativity
to the process and each came up with a very intriguing landscape. We are soliciting the opinion of fellow FDH
Lounge Dignitary Kyle Ross to determine a winner, based on all of the usual
money-drawing potentialities (gate, PPV, merch, ratings) as well as his sense
of who got better value from their picks.
Here’s how it
progressed, with a brief explanation as to each show’s creative structure
following the draft:
1 Raw: The Club
1 Smackdown: Seth
Rollins
2 Raw: Finn
Balor
2 Smackdown:
Samoa Joe
3 Raw: John
Cena
3 Smackdown:
Roman Reigns
4 Raw: Dean
Ambrose
4 Smackdown:
Kevin Owens
5 Raw: New Day
5 Smackdown:
Sasha Banks
6 Raw: Cesaro
6 Smackdown:
Shinsuke Nakamura
7 Raw: Lana
& Rusev
7 Smackdown:
American Alpha
8 Raw: The
Revival
8 Smackdown:
Charlotte & Dana Brooke
9 Raw: Enzo
& Big Cass
9 Smackdown:
Sami Zayn
10 Raw: Bayley
10 Smackdown:
Paul Heyman & Brock Lesnar
11 Raw: Luke
Harper (separate from the Wyatt Family)
11 Smackdown:
Usos
12 Raw: Chris
Jericho
12 Smackdown:
the rest of the Wyatt Family
13 Raw: Alberto
Del Rio
13 Smackdown:
Maryse & The Miz
14 Raw: Bubba
Ray Dudley (separate from D-Von Dudley)
14 Smackdown:
Bobby Roode
15 Raw: Hideo
Itami
15 Smackdown:
Apollo Crews
16 Raw: Neville
16 Smackdown: The
Undertaker
17 Raw: Kalisto
(separate from Sin Cara)
17 Smackdown:
Asuka
18 Raw: Dolph
Ziggler
18 Smackdown:
Austin Aries
19 Raw: Sheamus
19 Smackdown:
Becky Lynch
20 Raw: Nia Jax
20 Smackdown:
Zack Sabre, Jr.
21 Raw: Paige
21 Smackdown:
Tamina
22 Raw: Alexa
Bliss
22 Smackdown:
Tessa Blanchard
23 Raw:
Carmella
23 Smackdown:
Zack Ryder
24 Raw: Coach
Backlund & Darren Young
24 Smackdown:
No Way Jose
25 Raw: Rhyno
25 Smackdown:
Kane
26 Raw: Johnny
Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa
26 Smackdown:
Kota Ibushi
27 Raw: Titus O’Neil
27 Smackdown:
Baron Corbin
28 Raw: Social
Outcasts
28 Smackdown:
Golden Truth
29 Raw: Rich
Swann
29 Smackdown:
Andrade Almas
30 Raw: Jack
Swagger
30 Smackdown:
Eric Young
31 Raw: The
Vaudevillains
31 Smackdown:
Breezango
32 Raw: Nikki
Bella
32 Smackdown:
Cedric Alexander
33 Raw: Eva
Marie
33 Smackdown:
Mojo Rawley
34 Raw: Big
Show
34 Smackdown:
Emma
35 Raw: Alicia
Fox
35 Smackdown:
Tye Dillinger
36 Raw: Natalya
37 Raw: Summer
Rae
38 Raw: Jack
Gallagher
39 Raw: The
Brian Kendrick
40 Raw: David
Otunga
Interestingly,
both of us would have gone Club-Balor with our first two picks, albeit Jake
would have put them in a big feud and I would put them together as the
Bulletproof Balor Club (albeit with Balor breaking off eventually and utilizing
the Demon character as he did in NXT as a major face), the anchor heel stable
of Raw – hopefully letting them run completely wild like their NWO ancestors 20
years ago. To keep the “too sweet” guys
from being “too cool” as heels, I selected Sheamus to be their “heater,” since
he shares Irish heritage with Balor.
I picked Harper
and Bubba as fresh big-time heels on the singles side of Raw and used my last
pick of Otunga to fill a role I’ve always liked, the Heyman-like agent
character who doesn’t so much represent a stable as he does clients who have a
common interest through him. It’s a way
to create a second heel group possibly consisting of the likes of Del Rio,
Jericho, Harper, Bubba, Show or others.
With Cena edging towards elder statesman status on the face side, Ambrose
and Cesaro start as the 1 and 1A full-time faces and contenders for the world
title match at WrestleMania 33. Ziggler
and O’Neil are next in line (with Neville as the brand’s white-meat babyface),
along with possibly a turned heel from that deep side of the roster.
On Smackdown,
Jake went from envisioning Joe as his franchise face to picturing him as
enforcer for his own franchise heel group, possibly known as The Bloodline,
along with Reigns and the Usos. As such,
his initial thought that Rollins would start as a heel went out the window as
well, with his formidable talents helping to anchor the face side. Owens, Wyatt, Miz and a host of longtime TNA
greats help to carry the heel side. As with
Raw, the full-time face side is a bit thinner, allowing for a big push right
off the bat for Rollins, Nakamura and Zayn.
The freedom to use HHH, Undertaker and Lesnar with this roster is
advantageous, although of course the company only has full freedom to use the
former whenever they want.
Raw probably
has an edge right off the bat with merch sellers, while Smackdown probably has
a better and deeper women’s division. Smackdown’s
tag team scene has less depth, but that could actually be an advantage in terms
of having more freedom to assemble teams as needed.
NXT was picked
over heavily, which will not happen to this extent in the “real draft,” since
there is a vested interest in keeping them in good shape in the near term. Notable undrafted wrestlers, who would be
candidates to go back to NXT, be released or accept another form of employment
other than active wrestling, include Naomi, Rosa Mendes, Mark Henry, D-Von
Dudley, Sin Cara, Primo & Epico & The Ascension. Naomi in particular would seem like a gimme
to become the next NXT Women’s Champion as the division rebuilds itself on the
fly after we raided it.
This segment
was a tremendous amount of fun, as Jake is as sharp of a booking competitor as
you could want in a scenario like this.
Regardless of who Kyle judges the winner, these are two rosters with a
metric ton of possibilities, demonstrating that the company made a wide
decision allowing for their deep crop of excellent young workers to achieve
their full potential through two mostly-separate promotions.
