WWE Draft 2017: 5 Things That Will Happen (And 5 That Won't)
6. There WON’T Be A Complete Overhaul
Fans expecting WWE’s forthcoming drafts to bring major changes are probably going to be disappointed. By all accounts, this will be a smaller draft than what we saw last year, with each General Manager making just a handful of picks. We’ll probably only see around a dozen changes in total: while both brands should emerge refreshed, neither will be unrecognisable.
The current rosters have only existed since July 2016, and while staleness has definitely crept in to some places, wholesale changes would completely destroy each brand’s identity. Raw and SmackDown’s problems aren’t big enough to require a hard reset, and instead of burning everything down and starting from scratch, all WWE need to do is address their current issues with a handful of strategic picks.
Most fans would agree that things have gone pretty well for WWE since the brand split kicked in, so why mess with the formula? If it had tanked, then such extreme measures might be the only solution, but it hasn’t. Major stars might switch brands, but by the end of it, SmackDown will still look like SmackDown, and Raw will still look like Raw - only with a few extra bells and whistles attached.