10 Wrestling Facts We Didn’t Know Last Week (April 26)
8. WWE's Draft Previously Only Considered Marriages
It's been reported that Andrade (who's dating Charlotte Flair) , Zelina Vega and Aleister Black (who are married) were all drafted to SmackDown in the Superstar Shake-Up because WWE didn't want to interfere in their real-life relationships. If true, then this is a fairly new practice for WWE. Just ask Bruce Prichard.
On his 'Something To Wrestle With' podcast, the creative team member discussed the 2004 WWE Draft and revealed how company figureheads treated casual relationships and friendships back then.
It turns out, they didn't give them much thought. Bruce said that marriages were the only relationships taken into consideration when deciding which wrestlers would go to which brands. People who were dating or had become great friends were encouraged to find new pals to ride from town-to-town with.
Prichard admitted that WWE's general attitude towards riding buddies was, "Time to make new friends". Unless two co-workers were husband and wife, their circumstances wouldn't be reviewed before the Raw and SmackDown rosters were fleshed out.