I am genuinely suprised to see people saying this was a botched draft and what not... and in response to so many of the responses which are like.. why did this happen? this is stupid etc... my response is how so????
So many positives came out of this Draft, Triple H needed to leave RAW. People had grown too comftable and things had gotten really stale lately on all 3 shows. JR and the King simply had to split up in my opinon. Jim Ross will not be around for ever and by making Cole move up to the A show I think it shows WWE is finnaly ready to move on and move forward... so many diffrent angles can happen from what the draft produced alone. Kennedy has a chance to regroup, he'd have got forgotten on RAW. All 3 titles could end up on RAW after NOC as well as MITB. More importantly by bringing Orton out and reminding us of himself as well as the whole Jericho/ Cade vs HBK segment I think this 3 hour draft truly showed just how much talent WWE has at its disposal. The fact ECW only got one draft doesnt matter... I feel like Tazz is ready to lead ECW in a battle or recruit from Smackdown and Raw and take its future in to there own hands.
The Vince angle has so many possibilitys and was not stupid in the slightest for me... I for sure will be watching all the WWE shows this week and am sure many other fans will as well.
Best DRAFT ever!!!!
I can't speak for anybody else, but the reason I call it a botched draft is because the draft has three essential goals in mind: freshen things up, push new talent, and balance out the shows to make them more entertaining. But they screwed themselves over with some of their choices.
For instance, "freshen things up". A lot of people say "HHH was stale on Raw, Batista was stale on Smackdown"...but does the logo really matter when you move half the roster with them? On Raw, the entire year was dominated by feuds between Cena, HHH, Orton, JBL, Hardy, HBK, and Jericho, correct? Raw loses HHH and Hardy. That means we'll have to sit through even more Cena/Orton, Orton/HBK, Cena/JBL. That's not fresh at all. Also, we'll see Umaga continue to be squashed by Jeff Hardy and Triple H. We've seen that for the past year. Granted we have a few people that can feud that couldn't before, when you bring Batista, Mysterio, and Punk into the mix, but really, how good are they? Is Cena/Punk going to be a main event feud people care about? Does anybody REALLY want to see Kane/Mysterio? Or what about Punk/JBL? Give me a break. This year just SCREAMS that it'll be Cena holding the title for months on end, that way he can feud with Batista, JBL, Orton, Jericho, and a possible Punk heel turn, and everyone can start hating Cena when he was finally getting some pops again. As far as the midcards go for all three shows, not a single one of the midcarders moved, so we won't see any changes in "freshening things up". We'll continue not to see Elijah Burke at all, we'll have Deuce and Domino on the same show despite breaking up but having nowhere to make any names for themselves, Carlito will continue jobbing instead of going on ECW where he could make a difference, etc.
Then for "push new talent" aspect. When you've got the Undertaker, Edge, and HHH on Smackdown, you have zero room for Jeff, Kennedy, MVP, or Umaga to move up to the main event. So they'll be stuck in the same position they were last year: upper midcard. Unless of course the WWE says "well we lost Matt Hardy in the midcard, so I guess we'll demote these four and make them the midcard division. People will like Jeff Hardy versus Palumbo, right?" The only way that Edge will not just be screwed out of his main event spot is if the Undertaker moves away from Smackdown, which kills their storyline, but if HHH really wants to turn heel like he said, do you think he's going to let Edge be the dominant heel instead of him? No chance. And where's Umaga and MVP fit in the heel hierarchy on Smackdown, then? Nowhere.
"Balancing out the shows". Who does ECW have now? They have John Morrison who should be pushed to the main event on Raw or Smackdown but he won't be now as bigger names will shun him away. They have Shelton Benjamin who can't figure out a way to get over. And they have Matt Hardy, who hasn't even proved himself worthy of a decent US title feud after winning it, so he can't carry the brand. Kane moves the ECW title over to Raw with him, so if Big Show wins at NoC, he'll be on RAW, not ECW. Makes no sense. So we have Smackdown now with way too many main event guys and no midcard (sound familiar, ala how Raw was before), Raw with way too many midcarders and the main event consisting of the same 4 guys we've seen fighting for a year (sound familiar, ala how Smackdown was before), and ECW with absolutely nobody except one guy who should be pushed farther (Morrison), and three "solid midcarders that aren't in the upper midcard yet" (Shelton, Miz, and Matt Hardy).
The draft would have made much more sense if even a few little things had changed. For instance, if you want to push Jeff Hardy or Kennedy, why put them on Smackdown with guys that won't be leaving the main event anytime soon to give them a chance? Since Raw is lacking in main event people now, Kennedy staying on there would've helped push him greatly. An ECW move to Jeff Hardy would've given them a solid main event guy that could carry the belt a long time convincingly and help ratings. Smackdown is the more kid-friendly show, so why not move Cena there instead of Triple H? That would give us the potential for some feuds we haven't seen before (HHH/Kennedy, Cena/Undertaker, Cena/MVP). No women are drafted, so we won't be seeing Mickie/Natalya, Melina/Victoria, Michelle/Beth or anything different, we'll just be stuck seeing even more of Cherry/Maryse and such.
Know what I mean? The draft had the potential to move around so many people that would've benefited, but unless they have some major plans in effect (and that they're much better than that pathetic injury angle that took place with Vince) then the way I look at it, we have the future stars that needed pushes will be going nowhere, the feuds at the top we've seen 100x will continue, the midcarders will fight the same people they've been fighting for a year now, ECW will be more than a bore, and Raw will look as if all their stars are out on injuries and they're scraping the bottom of the barrel by having something like Punk/Mysterio to fill in the gaps that aren't dominated by a year-long Cena reign which nobody wants to see again.
