After last night's lackluster finish to Monday Night RAW (7/18/16), I felt the need to express my opinion before we go into the WWE Draft tonight during SmackDown Live.
RAW dropped several exclamation points to make this draft more interesting - the Cruiserweight division was announced to return and to be exclusive to the RAW brand and two General Managers have been named - Mick Foley for RAW and Daniel Bryan for SmackDown.
The rules for the WWE Draft are as follows:
- Raw has the first overall pick
- Since SmackDown Live is a two-hour show and Raw is three hours, for every two picks SmackDown Live receives, Raw will receive three picks
- Tag teams count as one pick unless a Commissioner/General Manager specifically only wants one member of the team
- Six draft picks will be made off the NXT roster
The list of current WWE Superstars eligible for the WWE Draft will be as follows:
Male Superstars
AJ Styles
Alberto Del Rio
Apollo Crews
Baron Corbin
Big Show
Braun Strowman
Bray Wyatt
Brock Lesnar
Cesaro
Chris Jericho
Darren Young (w/ Bob Backlund)
Dean Ambrose – WWE Champion
Demon Kane
Dolph Ziggler
Erick Rowan
Jack Swagger
John Cena
Kalisto
Kevin Owens
Mark Henry
Neville
Randy Orton
Roman Reigns
Rusev (w/ Lana) – United States Champion
Sami Zayn
Seth Rollins
Sheamus
Sin Cara
The Miz (w/ Maryse) – Intercontinental Champion
Titus O’Neil
Zack Ryder
Tag Teams
Breezango (Fandango and Tyler Breeze)
Enzo and Cass (Enzo Amore and Big Cass)
Gallows and Anderson (Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson)
Golden Truth (Goldust and R-Truth)
Shining Stars (Epico and Primo)
Social Outcasts (Bo Dallas, Curtis Axel and Heath Slater)
The Ascension (Konnor and Viktor)
The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley)
The New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) – Tag Team Champions
The Usos (Jey and Jimmy Uso)
The Vaudevillains (Aiden English and Simon Gotch)
Female Superstars
Alicia Fox
Becky Lynch
Charlotte – WWE Women’s Champion
Dana Brooke
Eva Marie
Naomi
Natalya
Paige
Sasha Banks
Summer Rae
Starting right off the bat, I think the single stupidest ruling in this draft is the second one. Just because Raw is three hours, they get more draft picks? Wouldn't this have been the perfect time to scale Raw back to two hours for it's easier to digest on Monday nights? Plus, how can SmackDown compete fairly if Raw is always going to have an extra hour up on them? That's already unfair to start things off.
We can easily say that Mick Foley was brought in to simultaneously earn brownie points for his son on creative while trying to get a spot for his hot daughter as a future WWE Diva, as well as easily plugging his reality TV show on the WWE Network (Holy Foley?) when we get closer to that release that. The same can be said about Daniel Bryan who could be around to promote Total Bellas while the Bella Twins are away. From a fan perspective, I'm anxious to see what both guys bring to the table. Foley is claiming to run RAW with Attitude Era-themed craziness while Daniel Bryan is claiming to put talent first. Foley's idea isn't going to pan out as there's no way in hell we're going back to Attitude Era-style anything. If anything this would be a throwback to Commissioner Foley's run in the early 2000s for younger fans can get a dose of that goodness. I just don't get why would Foley agree to work with the Authority. That aspect alone makes not one bit of sense when he's been opposed to the Authority for a long time now, especially against Stephanie McMahon and Triple H. Daniel Bryan and Shane O'Mac makes a good combination on paper but I don't know how Bryan will perform in this position. He's had the guest RAW GM role before but this will be a full time gig. How long will it be before he gets the itch to compete again like Shawn Michaels back in that position?
Back to the draft rules though, I can respect the ruling that tag teams count as one pick but why aren't the Wyatt Family listed as a single team, but the New Day are? I'm guessing that they are going to push Bray Wyatt solo while splitting up the rest from the ground. The Lucha Dragons have already split up, so it's looking like the Wyatts might be going in their own separate direction (again) even though that didn't work the first time. I say if they don't pull the trigger on them now to push them as tag team champions now and dethrone the New Day then who else is going to do it? Well, I might be answering my own question with my 10 draft picks for each brand...
Last but not least, we have 6 draft picks from NXT. In my head, I'm thinking that WWE would be insane not to draft Samoa Joe or Shinsuke Nakamura right now, but at the same time, I can see HHH hanging onto his newest acquisitions because it's a no brainer that NXT is going to get raped clean for this draft to beef up both brands. Either way, his precious NXT talent signings would benefit both brands in one way or another.
My RAW Draft Pick Predictions:
- Seth Rollins (more than likely champion after tonight or Battleground)
- Roman Reigns
- AJ Styles
- The Club (Gallows & Anderson)
- Women's Champion Charlotte
- IC Champion The Miz (w/ Maryse)
- Sami Zayn
- Eva Marie
- Brock Lesnar (w/ Paul Heyman)
- Finn Balor
My SmackDown Draft Pick Predictions:
- WWE Champion Dean Ambrose
- John Cena
- Bobby Roode
- American Alpha
- Sasha Banks
- US Champion Rusev (w/ Lana)
- Kevin Owens
- Bayley
- WWE Tag Team Champions The New Day
- Tye Dillinger
I kid you not, I raked my brain on these draft picks for about six hours today at work before settling on these. Keep in mind these picks are NOT in order either. I would go into detail about why I went with these choices, but nah... I think I have a good balance of shockers and surprises. I'm not expecting WWE to go in this direction. In reality, I'm actually thinking that WWE is going completely into left field with a lot of picks tonight.
إرسال تعليق