6 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Oct 14)

4. Draft ‘Logic’

When FOX bought the rights to SmackDown, they apparently wanted the show to be presented more as sport than entertainment, which makes sense, since FOX airs the NFL and Major League Baseball.

So a draft seemed like a semi-logical way to split up the brands (another FOX demand), giving it more of a sport feel. But the draft itself was just a really strange deal, with odd rules. We had the roster split up into two groups, with one group eligible one night, and the other group up for grabs the other night. Raw got three picks to every two for SmackDown because of the length of Raw (sounds fair). Tag teams/stables/wrestlers and managers counted as one pick – unless the executives wanted (for God knows what reason) to break them up and only draft one.

But how they were announced was… odd. They announced them in rounds of five (three Raw, two SmackDown), all at once. But how would that possibly work? Consider, if Raw drafted Seth Rollins first, did they go to SmackDown so they could consult on who their pick was (Brock Lesnar)? Then they’d have to go back to Raw (or the USA executives) and let them know Brock was picked, so they could pick their second choice, and so on, and so on. That seems awfully involved but it’s the only was this could logically have worked.

But that’s not what happened. Stephanie McMahon just walked out and announced each round of five choices. That is not how a real draft works.