10 Stupidest Decisions By WWE In 2007
8. Poorly-Handled Draft Split Weakens Smackdown And ECW
On June 11th, 2007 WWE once again decided to reshuffle the brands in an effort to freshen things up. During a three-hour episode of Raw, WWE performers were traded to and from Raw, Smackdown and ECW. As is usually the case with these things, not all of the decisions were popular and one or two genuinely baffling.
An already-depleted Smackdown crew was hit further by the loss of Chris Benoit, Booker T and Ken Kennedy. The loss of popular and dependable midcarders William Regal, Paul London and Brian Kendrick was another blow. They weren't adequately replaced by the likes of The Great Khali, Kenny Dykstra, Chris Masters or Torrie Wilson.
One of the more surprising draft picks was Ric Flair, who moved from the red to the blue show. This was not an arrangement that The Nature Boy was happy about, since most of his friends performer on Raw and he felt it was a demotion, something he didn't want considering he knew his full-time in-ring career was not going to last too much longer.
Flair was so unhappy about his role on Smackdown that he actually handed in his notice in September. He would be gone for a couple of months and came close to retiring altogether before WWE convinced him to return (on Raw, of course).
ECW was also weakened as Bobby Lashley, The Sandman and Hardcore Holly were sent to Raw. Big Daddy V, The Miz, Johnny Nitro and The Boogeyman were not considered great replacements by many.
A draft is a hard thing to get right but WWE made some very odd, seemingly not thought-through decisions in 2007. Chris Benoit, for example, was supposedly bothered by his move to ECW, because he knew it was a demotion and felt as though he was being phased-out.