BRM's Thoughts on the 2020 WWE Draft, and What the Future of the WWE Draft Should Be

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BRM's Thoughts on the 2020 WWE Draft, and What the Future of the WWE Draft Should Be

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 15th, '20, 15:03

As you all might have guessed by now, I stayed away from the draft for the sake of my own sanity. Now that it’s over, I do have some comments. The first part of this will be me musing about the various personnel moves and similar things, while the second part will deal with structure, logic, and presentation, with a bold conclusion/hot take/whatever the new buzzwords for “here is my big idea that I want you to pay attention to and laud me for” at the end.

PERSONNEL
1. Raw feels very heel-heavy. The babyface side has Drew, then Lee, then Hardy and Riddle, and that’s everyone who feels like they’re upper midcard or above on the men’s side. On the women’s side, Asuka is all alone. The heel side has Orton, Fiend, Braun, Retribution (looked, they’re pushed as a big deal, main event act), Sheamus, and Lashley/Hurt Business (Lashley is the only one who is above the middle of the midcard as a singles guy, but the faction as a whole feels main event) for the men’s upper-midcard and above spots, and Charlotte, Jax, and Baszler (and Mia Yim, maybe) on the women’s side. Also, there is Dabba-Kato, who I’m sure they’re going to want to push. (The men’s babyface side does also have Kofi, but if they were going to use him as a singles guy, they wouldn’t have put the tag belts on him).
This leads me to suspect that Hurt Business is going to turn. They just turned Ali heel and joined him up with the other heels they’re feuding with, ended the feud with Ricochet in a rather abrupt but also silly way, and moved Apollo Crews to SD, pretty much ending their feud with the babyface faction they had been feuding with. On the one hand, this feels necessary, because they are the coolest and most badass dudes on the show. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t create some problems. Well... one problem, really: What can you do with Lashley?
Put quite simply, Lashley is the kind of guy of, if he is a babyface, he needs to be in the world title picture or in a blood feud. He’s too big for the IC Title, and his personality is such that he can’t feud with midcarders for too long because he would just demolish them. On Raw, we’ve got Drew McIntyre as our badass babyface world champion in his first reign. If they’re really trying to make Drew a top guy, he needs to hold the title for quite a while, and while feuding with real top names (and Orton is his first truly top-guy program. The stuff with Seth was a one-off). Lashley is also the kind of guy who gets damaged more quickly than others by trying for the world title and failing, since he winds up being seen as a guy who is always the bridesmaid but never the bride, which is actually worse than being a guy who gets built up, fails, and then falls back down the card and gets built up against before his next title shot.
Alternatively, there is an opportunity here for them to finally elevate Ricochet. He and AJ Styles should be having an awesome feud over a secondary title.

2. Smackdown’s tag division feels like it could be pretty stacked. Raw’s feels weak and stale, and I don’t think the rumored Hardy/Riddle pairing would help as much as people might want it to.

3. I have no idea what they’re doing with Ruas. The guy is great, but WWE just doesn’t wrestle his style. The best match-ups for him are all in NXT (Fish, O’Reilly, Thatcher). Looking at the main roster, everyone else who would match up well with him is either also a heel (Lashley, Shelton, Gulak) on the other show (Bryan) or both (Aleister, Ziggler). I also have no faith in WWE’s ability to use him well.

4. I also don’t know what they’re thinking with Dabba-Kato. I saw him in EVOLVE and I’ve seen him on Raw and the guy doesn’t feel ready for a main roster spot. Raw now has Strowman as it’s big heel monster and Smackdown just got Lars, so the best place for him feels like NXT, where he can not only feel more special but also develop more, which he sorely needs.
If he does have to be on the main roster, I think SD is the much better home for him. It has Kevin Owens, who he has already started a little feud with, it puts him in position to feud with Lars if you want (whereas Raw already has Keith Lee as a big-guy counterpoint to Braun), and I like the idea of him and Heyman being in proximity to each other, even if you’re not going to do anything with it for a while.

5. I have never claimed to know what the hell they’re doing with The Fiend, and I’m still confused. I look at the Raw roster and I see no one for him to wrestle. And I do mean NO ONE. And so much of that comes down to this idea that if you get involved with The Fiend, you turn. When I look at the Raw roster, I don’t see anyone who needs to turn who hasn’t started to already, other than maybe AJ Styles, but I also don’t see how you set that match up without AJ starting to feel like a babyface beforehand.

6. Seth Rollins moving to Smackdown is weird as well. I think he will wind up feeling second fiddle to Roman a lot more than he did to Randy on SD simply because the show is shorter. I don’t see much in the way of interesting new feuds for him other than the part-time Daniel Bryan, and I don’t see much in terms of potential for new disciples (Roode and Ziggler are the ones who jumped to mind, but they don’t really fit personality-wise. Aleister feels thematic, but I just can’t see Aleister consenting to playing second fiddle). Between that and the fact that not only did they move over his entire feud, but also two of the three other people he had been feuding with this year (Aleister, Owens), this move really doesn’t feel like it freshens Seth up at all.
He and Roman being in the same place seems like it has to lead to a heel vs. heel feud, with both personalities being such that neither will turn babyface, but that’s not something WWE likes to do, so it’s hard to see it happening.

7. The fact that Mercedes Martinez was dropped from Retribution is yet another thing that exposes just how poorly this group has been planned out. This is not the sort of thing that happens when you have an actual plan.

STRUCTURE, LOGIC, AND PRESENTATION
This year seemed to be little better in terms of structure and logic. Champions had to be picked in order to stay on their show, and were picked early, along with big names like Seth. That being said, I do still have some complaints.

1. Retribution
Let’s just get this one out of the way first. As many others have pointed out, the idea that the rebellious group that hates WWE and wants to destroy it would dutifully listen and go to whichever brand they were assigned to is ridiculous and is yet another thing that kills the gimmick.

2. “You can draft a unit as a whole, unless you don’t want to.”
I don’t have a problem with this rule existing, but it’s something that needs to be kept in mind when the draft is being laid out, because, quite frankly, there is almost never going to be a situation where it’s not the right move to draft the entire unit. If you were given the choice between having all three members of New Day on your roster or just having Woods and Kofi, why the hell wouldn’t you take all three of them? Even if you think Big E. has no value, you’re not spending anything extra to take him because you’re already taking Woods and Kofi. And if you think that they’re better with Woods and Kofi as a tag team and Big E. as a singles competitor, there is still no reason to draft them separately, because once you draft all three of them together, you can just book Big E. in singles matches all the time and book Woods and Kofi as the team.
The reason I said “almost never” above is that it’s possible to come up with a story to justify why the decision-makers would want them separated (maybe they think Big E. has real singles superstar potential but that Kofi and Woods’ goofiness is keeping him from focusing on what he needs to focus on), but if that’s the case then you have to tell that story, and I have no faith that WWE will do so. And that’s not just me ragging on WWE. That’s going off of empirical evidence. Look at Lucha House Party, who were also drafted separately. Lucha House Party were in the middle of a storyline where Kalisto and Lincé Dorado aren’t getting along. Setting things up so that drafting them separately makes sense would have been easy, but WWE took no steps to do so.

3. Supplemental picks and free agency
If you’re going to have these “supplemental picks” on social media after the show, why put a cap on the number?
The “if you don’t get drafted you become a free agent” thing makes some sense if we assume that the wrestlers are under contracts to their brands that stretch from draft to draft. That being said, if the way you’re going to handle the free agents is by having almost all of them signed before the first post-draft show starts (and, as of this moment, all of them other than Mickie James and Andrade are), when that’s the point of them being free agents rather than just drafting them during the supplemental picks?
(Once again, you could justify the difference by turning it into an angle, but if that’s the case, you need to make sure the angle makes sense. For example, you can’t portray Andrade as this free agent who both sides are negotiating with throwing lots of money at, because if he was that desirable then it doesn’t make any sense that he wouldn’t have gotten drafted after, say, Titus O’Neil or Riddick Moss or Dana Brooke.

4. Drafting an entire feud from one show to the other
The draft is usually hyped by WWE and looked at by fans as serving the purpose of moving people around to create fresh new possibilities on the roster. A “shake-up,” some might call it (but those people are branding-obsessed donkey lickers and should be flogged). While that does make some sense as a kayfabe goal as well, if we are to pretend that Raw and Smackdown (or USA and Fox, or whatever) are two competing entities, then it does make sense that Fox would want Aleister Black to go along with their pick of Kevin Owens because there is ready-made heat there that they can use to draw with right away.
Outside of kayfabe, the reason for drafting an entire feud from one show to the other is that you have plans for at least one of the participants with people on the other show, but you don’t want to blow the current feud off yet, either. And everyone watching over the age of ten understands this, which is why when it happens too much in the same draft, it makes things feel forced, because if the brand were competing with each other and guys like Owens and Aleister are such big stars, you’d think the other brand might run interference and pick the other person in this feud (hell… if Vince was willing to pick Devon Dudley as a singles wrestler just to make sure Flair didn’t get both Dudleys, then surely Raw would want to hang on to Aleister Black a lot more than they would want Titus O’Neil or the Drifter, and that’s probably true even if making that pick didn’t have the added benefit of robbing Fox of a pre-made hot feud).

5. Who is available to be drafted?
I like the pools as a way to essentially let two sets of people be the top picks rather than one, and to let pretty much everyone but the very bottom picks look better because they’re picked in a higher round because only half of roster is available on each day.
What I don’t like is that some people aren’t in the pool at all. Look at real sports: If someone is injured at the time of the draft, they’re still eligible to be picked. They might be picked a little later because of the injury, but they’re still in the pool. There is NO reason that wrestlers who are injured (Jimmy Uso, Jinder, Ivar) or on some other authorized leave (Becky Lynch) shouldn’t be in the pool. If we make the “draft to draft contracts” assumption that I brought up before, it might make sense for someone to go undrafted if it is known (or even assumed) that they won’t be back before the next draft, but there is no reason for them to not be in the pool. (And, quite frankly, even if I don’t know if she’ll be back before the next draft, I would have much rather taken Becky Lynch than Carmella on the off chance that she’ll be back, and take my chances negotiating with Carmella in free agency.) And that’s not even bringing up the people who have mysteriously disappeared from TV and weren’t included in the pool for no logical reason other than that the promotion didn’t want them there (Forgotten Sons, Mojo Rawley, Bo Dallas).
The reason that WWE does this the way they do is because they figure “why make a decision about someone now when we can put it off until they’re ready to come back, when we’ll have a better idea of where they can do the most good?” The problem with that is that it’s non-kayfabe reasoning, and without us being given a kayfabe reason to wallpaper over the obvious non-kayfabe thought process, it contributes to this supposed “draft” between two competing shows feeling phony because it’s WWE really pulling the strings.
This is not the first time in this article that I’ve made that point, and that’s not an accident. In fact, it leads me to my big, bold conclusion, which is that…

WWE NEEDS TO CHANGE THE FRAMING OF AND PRESENTATION OF THE DRAFT SO DRASTICALLY TO THE POINT WHERE IT ISN’T A DRAFT ANYMORE
Several pieces of pro wrestling advice have been floating around in my head over the past few days. One of them is that “the more you tell the truth, the easier it will be to get people to buy in when you don’t.” Another is that rather than fighting circumstances that get in your way, lean into them, and use them (or, if you’d prefer, “if the fans hate Roman, just turn him heel!”). A third is “play to your strength and avoid your weaknesses.”
I have been a major critic of the “brand rivalry” idea in WWE (and especially for the current roster split), and the reason for that is that WWE is completely terrible at creating the idea that Raw and Smackdown are competing with each other in any form. That criticism doesn’t just apply to the sudden run of nationalism that everyone seems to start feeling the day after the October PPV and then loses just as suddenly the week after Survivor Series. Indeed, a big part of the problem is that the supposed competition doesn’t feel like it exists at any other point in the year, and that includes the draft.
As I’ve said in this article and many other places, it often feels a lot more like there is one invisible player making decisions for both shows than it does like there are two shows trying to outdo each other by creating the better roster. And as I also said, fans know that the real purpose of the draft is to create fresh match-ups and move the pieces around the board as needed for what is to come next, and they view this as the main purpose of the draft. So why not lean into that? Instead of telling a lie that no one believes, why not tell the truth (or at least as much of it as you can without breaking kayfabe), especially when that truth actually makes you look better than the lie does?
As I’ve said, the idea of competition between the brands needs to go. Fans aren’t loyal to shows; they’re loyal to wrestlers and to promotions. If a fan likes Raw better than Smackdown, it’s because either Raw has more of their favorite wrestlers or because they think Raw is the better pro wrestling product. The idea of the two brands competing against each other not only gains nothing, but it actually takes attention away from the idea that in kayfabe, the promotion is trying to deliver the most exciting product possible. To put the focus back on this positive, WWE should portray this event not as two entities trying to out-do each other, but as the time of the year where WWE evaluates the rosters and makes some changes that they think will freshen up the rosters and result in a more exciting product for the fans in the year to come.
Yes, at that point it would no longer be a “draft” so much as just a reshuffling, but that’s fine because a draft implies teams, and people only care about the results of a draft if care about the results for the teams. In wrestling, they don’t. They care about the results for the individual players (i.e. the wrestlers) and the landscape of the league (i.e. what match-ups are in play), but no one who is interested in the Sasha vs. Bayley feud would have become any less interested in it if both of them had gotten drafted to Raw and Asuka had taken her belt to Smackdown.
Making this change in framing would solve all of the draft’s logic and presentation issues. No more poor competitive choices by supposedly competing parties that can only be explained with kayfabe goals, no more feeling awkward when everyone in a feud switches shows, people not being in the draft pool because they’re not ready to return from injury makes sense because we’re acknowledging that there is one creative force behind all of this, and instead of telling a goofy, pointless lie that no one believes and those underlying structure requires WWE to do something they are incredibly bad at, they can just tell us the truth about what they’re doing, and the fact that they’re doing it for our benefit.
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Re: BRM's Thoughts on the 2020 WWE Draft, and What the Future of the WWE Draft Should Be

Post by cero2k » Oct 15th, '20, 15:41

Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 15th, '20, 15:03 6. Seth Rollins moving to Smackdown is weird as well.
to me it came across as FOX wanted Rey Mysterio on Smackdown and since WWE is not done with whatever that feud is, they just moved the whole feud over.

Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 15th, '20, 15:03 1. Retribution
Let’s just get this one out of the way first. As many others have pointed out, the idea that the rebellious group that hates WWE and wants to destroy it would dutifully listen and go to whichever brand they were assigned to is ridiculous and is yet another thing that kills the gimmick.
not to mention the lack of logic of RAW wanting to 'draft' the group that calls itself regurgitation before half of their roster.
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Re: BRM's Thoughts on the 2020 WWE Draft, and What the Future of the WWE Draft Should Be

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 15th, '20, 15:59

cero2k wrote: Oct 15th, '20, 15:41
Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 15th, '20, 15:03 1. Retribution
Let’s just get this one out of the way first. As many others have pointed out, the idea that the rebellious group that hates WWE and wants to destroy it would dutifully listen and go to whichever brand they were assigned to is ridiculous and is yet another thing that kills the gimmick.
not to mention the lack of logic of RAW wanting to 'draft' the group that calls itself regurgitation before half of their roster.
Well... it is five people for the price of one pick.
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Re: BRM's Thoughts on the 2020 WWE Draft, and What the Future of the WWE Draft Should Be

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 15th, '20, 16:11

cero2k wrote: Oct 15th, '20, 15:41
Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 15th, '20, 15:03 6. Seth Rollins moving to Smackdown is weird as well.
to me it came across as FOX wanted Rey Mysterio on Smackdown and since WWE is not done with whatever that feud is, they just moved the whole feud over.

Which is really a shame because I think it would have been a lot more interesting to leave Murphy on Raw, and have it revealed that either Rey, Dominik, or Seth (depending on how the story wants to go) lobbied Smackdown to not pick Murphy and later lobbied for Raw to take him (you probably need to have Murphy in the Monday pool and everyone else in the Friday pool to make this work best due to the timing) to keep him away from Aalyah (if it's Dominik or Rey) or just keep him out of the way (if it's Seth), but have Muprhy and Aalyah keep texting and have her try to talk to Steph to get Murphy moved over to SD or even try to sign a contract to be a manager so she can go to Raw and be with Murphy before you bring them all back together through whatever stipulations or lobbying and then pull the trigger on whatever the big thing you're building up to with Murphy and Aalyah is.
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Re: BRM's Thoughts on the 2020 WWE Draft, and What the Future of the WWE Draft Should Be

Post by cero2k » Oct 15th, '20, 17:45

Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 15th, '20, 16:11
Which is really a shame because I think it would have been a lot more interesting to leave Murphy on Raw, and have it revealed that either Rey, Dominik, or Seth (depending on how the story wants to go) lobbied Smackdown to not pick Murphy and later lobbied for Raw to take him (you probably need to have Murphy in the Monday pool and everyone else in the Friday pool to make this work best due to the timing) to keep him away from Aalyah (if it's Dominik or Rey) or just keep him out of the way (if it's Seth), but have Muprhy and Aalyah keep texting and have her try to talk to Steph to get Murphy moved over to SD or even try to sign a contract to be a manager so she can go to Raw and be with Murphy before you bring them all back together through whatever stipulations or lobbying and then pull the trigger on whatever the big thing you're building up to with Murphy and Aalyah is.
add that Survivor Series is coming, the one of the year that RAW and Smackdown wrestle each other, and if you're doing a whole Romeo and Juliette story, what better than paying it off there, the RAW 30 yr old and the Smackdown 19 yr old finally smooching on tv. Murphy trying to sneak into Smackdown to see her would had been content for the next month
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Re: BRM's Thoughts on the 2020 WWE Draft, and What the Future of the WWE Draft Should Be

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 15th, '20, 18:03

cero2k wrote: Oct 15th, '20, 17:45
Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 15th, '20, 16:11
Which is really a shame because I think it would have been a lot more interesting to leave Murphy on Raw, and have it revealed that either Rey, Dominik, or Seth (depending on how the story wants to go) lobbied Smackdown to not pick Murphy and later lobbied for Raw to take him (you probably need to have Murphy in the Monday pool and everyone else in the Friday pool to make this work best due to the timing) to keep him away from Aalyah (if it's Dominik or Rey) or just keep him out of the way (if it's Seth), but have Muprhy and Aalyah keep texting and have her try to talk to Steph to get Murphy moved over to SD or even try to sign a contract to be a manager so she can go to Raw and be with Murphy before you bring them all back together through whatever stipulations or lobbying and then pull the trigger on whatever the big thing you're building up to with Murphy and Aalyah is.
add that Survivor Series is coming, the one of the year that RAW and Smackdown wrestle each other, and if you're doing a whole Romeo and Juliette story, what better than paying it off there, the RAW 30 yr old and the Smackdown 19 yr old finally smooching on tv. Murphy trying to sneak into Smackdown to see her would had been content for the next month
That, too. On the Raw after HIAC you level the accusation that Murphy was seen talking to SD people all night and you play up this mystery of what he was doing and whether he's trustworthy, and then at Survivor Series you pay it off on camera with us finally seeing it.
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Re: BRM's Thoughts on the 2020 WWE Draft, and What the Future of the WWE Draft Should Be

Post by NWK2000 » Oct 16th, '20, 08:53

I didn't see it in what I read, so sorry if I'm just parroting but....

Champions should be exempt from the draft, no exceptions

The switcheroo of the Raw and Smackdown tag titles was so, so pointless. Like, sure, you could get a month out of a heel going "Ah, you didn't earn those belts" but then where do you go from there? That'll always be a stink on those guys' specific reigns.
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Re: BRM's Thoughts on the 2020 WWE Draft, and What the Future of the WWE Draft Should Be

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 16th, '20, 10:03

NWK2000 wrote: Oct 16th, '20, 08:53 I didn't see it in what I read, so sorry if I'm just parroting but....

Champions should be exempt from the draft, no exceptions

The switcheroo of the Raw and Smackdown tag titles was so, so pointless. Like, sure, you could get a month out of a heel going "Ah, you didn't earn those belts" but then where do you go from there? That'll always be a stink on those guys' specific reigns.
I don't think this would be as big a deal if the titles didn't have show names attached to them. If this was the men's singles champs changing shows, that wouldn't be an issue. But with the way WWE currently does things, that's not a bad rule to prevent silliness.
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Re: BRM's Thoughts on the 2020 WWE Draft, and What the Future of the WWE Draft Should Be

Post by NWK2000 » Oct 16th, '20, 10:23

Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 16th, '20, 10:03
NWK2000 wrote: Oct 16th, '20, 08:53 I didn't see it in what I read, so sorry if I'm just parroting but....

Champions should be exempt from the draft, no exceptions

The switcheroo of the Raw and Smackdown tag titles was so, so pointless. Like, sure, you could get a month out of a heel going "Ah, you didn't earn those belts" but then where do you go from there? That'll always be a stink on those guys' specific reigns.
I don't think this would be as big a deal if the titles didn't have show names attached to them. If this was the men's singles champs changing shows, that wouldn't be an issue. But with the way WWE currently does things, that's not a bad rule to prevent silliness.
Yes, but that isn't even the issue. I'm not even talking about a title switch, I'm talking about vacating a title in that way in any instance. The only way it's kind of justified is if you want to do a babyface to babyface or heel to heel transition while avoiding the scenario of a match between the two. But even then if you need a set of championships to change hands, why not just have them lose? Hell, if you don't want Wrestler A, the champion, to lose to Wrestler B, the next champion make it a Triple Threat and have Wrestler B beat Wrestler C so that the former champion can move on to greener pastures and the guy who won can pick up the mantle.
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Re: BRM's Thoughts on the 2020 WWE Draft, and What the Future of the WWE Draft Should Be

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 16th, '20, 12:06

NWK2000 wrote: Oct 16th, '20, 10:23
Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 16th, '20, 10:03
NWK2000 wrote: Oct 16th, '20, 08:53 I didn't see it in what I read, so sorry if I'm just parroting but....

Champions should be exempt from the draft, no exceptions

The switcheroo of the Raw and Smackdown tag titles was so, so pointless. Like, sure, you could get a month out of a heel going "Ah, you didn't earn those belts" but then where do you go from there? That'll always be a stink on those guys' specific reigns.
I don't think this would be as big a deal if the titles didn't have show names attached to them. If this was the men's singles champs changing shows, that wouldn't be an issue. But with the way WWE currently does things, that's not a bad rule to prevent silliness.
Yes, but that isn't even the issue. I'm not even talking about a title switch, I'm talking about vacating a title in that way in any instance. The only way it's kind of justified is if you want to do a babyface to babyface or heel to heel transition while avoiding the scenario of a match between the two. But even then if you need a set of championships to change hands, why not just have them lose? Hell, if you don't want Wrestler A, the champion, to lose to Wrestler B, the next champion make it a Triple Threat and have Wrestler B beat Wrestler C so that the former champion can move on to greener pastures and the guy who won can pick up the mantle.
I don't think a champion switching shows requires the belt to be vacated (and it hasn't in the past). The issues here was that it would be silly to have the SD tag champs on Raw and visa-versa. What they did here doesn't even bother me from a "you didn't earn it" standpoint because if the belts are equal then they are interchangeable. It bothers me from a record-keeping standpoint, as it inflates the numbers (much like the Divas Title being retired and Charlotte's Women's Title reign counting as a new reign, rather than just renaming and redesigning the Divas Title into the Women's Title).
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