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An in-depth review of WWE’s 2008 draft lottery

Last week on Raw, the WWE presented another draft lottery where despite being supposedly random only top stars got picked - it’s funny how that works out isn’t it? Then we got a supplemental lottery on WWE.com on Wednesday.

Let’s take a look at all the moves, the reasons for it, and what effects people will have on their new shows…

Rey Mysterio - SmackDown to Raw. I actually think Rey being injured right now could help him in terms of getting over on Raw. In the midst of the post-draft fallout where with HHH and Jim Ross, all the focus has been on people moving to SmackDown, Rey might have got lost in the shuffle.

As much as I think his goodbye promo on SmackDown was a dumb thing to do, if he’s out another couple of months before appearing on Raw then his first appearance on that show is a big deal. But if he debuts Monday, then it’s just a sideshow angle to the nuclear heat Michael Cole will get and Batista’s return to the show where he first became a big star.

As far as how things go from there, Rey is a great performer who can have great matches with a wider variety of opponents than he could in his athletic prime of 11 or 12 years ago. Back then, he was breathtakingly spectacular, but couldn’t have done those matches with 95% of the current Raw roster.

Now, he has the opportunity for fresh matchups with just about anybody. I see Rey playing a key role in Batista’s heel turn, and I think we will see those two feud at around the end of the year, to help get Batista over as a heel once he turns.

The only risk is that the Hispanic demographic might leave SmackDown now Rey’s gone, and with a move to a new network coming this autumn that might prove to be a mistake on the WWE’s part.

Jeff Hardy - Raw to SmackDown. In terms of placing on the card, Hardy for Mysterio is a pretty even trade. In fact, until HHH came over in the last pick of the night, I’d have said it would have benefited Hardy more than it would Rey.

Now, he’s essentially in the same place he was on Raw, where crowd reactions to any semblance of a push suggest he should be in main events, but with HHH and Undertaker on the babyface side his road is blocked - and it’d be even more blocked if MVP were to turn.

Also, as much as I liked their matches together on Raw, if the point of the draft is to shake things up and give people fresh matches, I have no desire whatsoever to see Jeff feud with Umaga for at least two years. A feud with Edge would be good, and I think there’s a chance that may happen if HHH and Undertaker are feuding together and they need to give Edge something else to do.

MVP is another possible opponent where I think they would bring the best out of each other. One thing that might help him on SmackDown as opposed to Raw is that head writer Michael Hayes has never made any secret of the fact that he’s a huge supporter of the Hardyz, and so Jeff might be better protected from doing needless jobs that define him as a midcard character as happened all too often on Raw.

CM Punk - ECW to Raw. In almost the exact opposite situation to Jeff Hardy, until HHH got drafted I was thinking this move would entrench Punk firmly as a midcarder, but HHH leaving and Batista showing signs of turning heel could mean Punk has a clear path to being the #2 or 3 babyface on the brand, which is a major step up from being the #1 or 2 babfyace on ECW.

Swapping Rey for Jeff Hardy is another move that worked out for the best for Punk, since Raw’s more adult audience I suspect may be more likely to get behind Punk as a top guy than Rey. I’m unsure what to say about potential feuds, because with him being not exactly an established veteran, and with constant rumours of him being in problems with people backstage you never know what you’ll get with how Punk is portrayed. He could be second match on the card working with Paul Burchill or working second from the top with Chris Jericho and neither situation would be all that much of a surprise.

If he’s going to be getting a good push, I’d like to see him face Randy Orton and Chris Jericho if he stays as a babyface, or with a heel turn I think a feud with Rey Mysterio would be very good, as would, dare I even think it, John Cena.

Matt Hardy - SmackDown to ECW. Well, to borrow a phrase, sucks to be him. On the one hand, he’ll be the top babyface on a show and get a World Title feud (assuming ECW gets its World Title belt back at some point in the near future). On the other hand, it’s ECW.

Since they have a lot of young guys such as Evan Bourne and Mike Knox who aren’t at the level needed to be pushed on the bigger brands, it makes sense that the WWE place a couple of veterans on ECW to bring the kids along. In that sense, I wouldn’t have minded the Ted Dibiase Jr faction moving to this show, or Colt Cabana being brought up to ECW soon, as he’s a name I’ve heard nothing about lately.

Of course, they tried to have The Big Show in that role but he was so broken down he ran through marquee matches, put over Lashley, and retired. Then they tried to give the role to Chris Benoit and everyone knows what happened there. Matt is a solid, reliable hand who can have decent matches with anyone but the stiffest of stiffs, and when I say decent matches, I mean decent matches in the style that WWE wants their guys to work.

He’s basically the perfect candidate for this role. Only problem is, unlike Finlay who also moved to ECW, Matt has the potential to be a solid main event guy in the Bret Hart mould if WWE were to get behind him. People love him, people have wanted to see him in main events for a while, and for the past year with Edge on SmackDown as World Champion the WWE had the perfect opportunity to give Matt the main event push even in just a short run.

I only hope he hasn’t missed the opportunity forever.

Jim Ross - Raw to SmackDown. Let’s get the reasons for the move out of the way first. Ross went on the internet and posted on his blog that he thinks it’s dumb that announcers should be in the draft and he doesn’t want to leave Raw. So Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn decide to fuck with him and move him, breaking up the decade-long Raw announce team of Ross and Jerry Lawler.

To be honest, I see positives to the move. Ross is the best wrestling announcer there has ever been, and even on the evidence of one show thus far, his voice calling the action just makes events on SmackDown seem much more important.

He has a gravitas and respect in the minds of the fans that they buy into what he says. The fact that he and Mick Foley are friends in real-life may help, as if Ross was humiliated in a way as happened on the Draft Raw to be put on commentary with Paul Heyman for example, I really think he may have just walked off the show and out of the company there and then.

One of the reasons I regret Rey Mysterio’s move to Raw is that we’ve never heard Jim Ross call his matches, and for one of the top stars in the company that’s just weird, because like I said in my draft preview column, Ross is the voice of the WWE.

Michael Cole - SmackDown to Raw. There was always going to come a time when Cole would be the lead announcer on the A-show of the WWE. The fact that he is not and never will be Jim Ross is a hurdle that may be hard to overcome in the first few weeks, especially as his first Raw will be in Ross’ hometown of Oklahoma.

But Ross won’t be around forever, and having Cole move up now eliminates the awkwardness of having Ross just not be there one week as would have been the case if he retired.

A great move for Cole, and maybe even a great move for Jerry Lawler as well, especially if he, under the guise of resenting Cole for replacing his friend, moves back into heelish announcing that he’s not really been doing with Ross. I think Cole gets an unfair reputation because people inevitably compare him to JR, which is an impossible standard to live up to.

Cole and Tazz were a good announce team. Cole and JBL were a GREAT announce team. Ok, Cole and Coach sucked, but I’d put the majority of the blame for that on Coach. I still think the way the WWE went about making the move was wrong, but it was inevitable the move would happen someday, and to be honest Cole has been there 11 years and deserves his shot.

If it doesn’t work out they can always move JR back in a year like they do every other time they try to replace him. 

Batista - SmackDown to Raw. Batista’s move was somewhat inevitable. On SmackDown he had done all he could outside of a heel turn, and all that would do is stunt the upward momentum of MVP.

Moving him to Raw means he can continue feuding with Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho on a full-time basis if the WWE choose to go that route. They can do the New Evolution stable hinted at by Randy Orton in a backstage segment at One Night Stand. But the most interesting thing for Batista on Raw, and dare I say the reason he moved, as well as my prediction for the main event of WrestleMania XXV right now, is that we can finally get a John Cena v. Batista feud.

This is a dream match that shows that the roster split can be used effectively when the WWE put their minds to it. They became stars on different shows, moved at the same time and thus avoided feuding with each other, and independently built reputations as top guys in the company. Now, especially if Batista turns heel although they could also easily do it in a double-babyface scenario, they have a genuine money match on their hands - one which I hope they don’t hotshot too quickly.

It’s been over three years since they both became main event guys, surely the WWE can hang on a few more months? If he does turn heel, as mentioned earlier I’d like to see a feud with Rey Mysterio, and having them be buddies, and possibly tag team partners leading up to it would be a perfect way to get there.

Umaga - Raw to SmackDown. When rumours were first brought up about moving Umaga to SmackDown I was a huge fan of the idea, because he had grown stale on Raw. Unfortunately, the reason he has grown stale on Raw is because he was built as a vicious uncontrollable monster yet he was dominated and made to look like a jobber by HHH and also frequently lost to John Cena and Jeff Hardy.

Now, he’s moved, but so have two of the three guys that made him lose his effectiveness to begin with! I like Umaga and have high hopes for what he could do if treated like a serious threat - but I fear he’ll be an ineffective upper-midcard jobber who will probably be losing to HHH and Hardy most of the time.

This week’s SmackDown did offer a glimmer of light when he was used as the crazed enforcer for Edge’s stable, but immediately HHH came out and beat him up so who knows? The La Familia role would be perfect for him, but only if he’s actually treated like an unstoppable and uncontrollable monster.

It also could potentially turn him babyface if he ever stands up to Edge, and that would be a fantastic feud.

Kane - ECW to Raw. I don’t get this move at all. Not only is the ECW Champion moved away from the ECW brand, but Kane is back on Raw. He, unlike Batista, is an example of why the roster split hasn’t worked.

He’s been everywhere on every show and hasn’t been protected as a main event star at all, to the point where working with him is actually detrimental to a guy’s career. With that in mind, when I look at the Raw roster for likely opponents to Kane I see CM Punk, Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton and possibly even John Cena, and working with Kane would be a waste of all of them.

It’s strange with Kane, because character wise he was at his absolute strongest and best booked for the first six months of his run, but that was more than a decade ago now, and I don’t think people see him as a major player. But, he’s a name from the Attitude Era that’s still around, and he’s huge, so that means he’ll always be pushed, but on Raw if he’s pushed it’ll be at the expense of people more deserving.

The monster veteran role in ECW was perfect for him at this stage of his career.

Mr Kennedy - Raw to SmackDown. This is something that seemed great but became inconsequential within 30 seconds because it was followed immediately by HHH being drafted.

I will say that if they do anything other than bring him over as a babyface and immediately put him into a feud with Edge, where he finally has the chance to get revenge for Edge costing him Money In The Bank and therefore a World Title shot last year, then they will have immediately cast Kennedy as a midcarder for life. They HAVE to do the Edge feud right off the bat.

The problem then is that Kennedy shouldn’t win, but as we’ve seen already in 2008 with Jeff Hardy, a great performance in a main event feud will see the fans buy you as a top guy. And Kennedy has the advantage of management seeing him as a top guy since he looks, talks and wrestles like the WWE want their main eventers to look, talk and wrestle.

I’ve never been a huge Kennedy fan, but a ready made storyline is right there infront of their very eyes and the WWE are fools if they don’t run with it. After that, he’ll be a solid upper midcarder as either babyface or heel to be honest, in much the same position he was on Raw in terms of booking, but the Edge feud and how he performs there may become important in future years as to whether he gets pushed up the card to main events again.

Triple H - Raw to SmackDown. This is the big move. HHH moving to SmackDown means we have two potential dream matches in the near future, Edge-HHH and Undertaker-HHH. In the case of Edge it’s a match that’s never happened, or at least never happened since Edge became a main eventer. And their mic work to start yesterday’s SmackDown really made me want to see it.

We have an arrogant chickenshit heel and a tough guy babyface who are both huge stars that have been kept apart for a long time. That’s MONEY. Especially if they take the time to build it even to SummerSlam (ideally WrestleMania but the chances of the WWE not blowing their load on both this match and Cena-Batista are pretty much zero and this is the one you can do earlier I think) then it’ll be a huge match.

Undertaker and HHH on the same show hasn’t happened in six years, and they really are, along with Shawn Michaels, two of the three icons of the current roster, so that will be huge. Even with Ross, Hardy, Umaga and Kennedy moving with him, the fact is that HHH had grown very stale on Raw and a new environment with some new matchups (MVP is a name that jumps out at me here) could reinvigorate Hunter and breathe new life into his career and the SmackDown brand in general.

It also gives them the opportunity to separate John Cena from HHH after this Sunday, and if they leave it a couple of years before their next match it could be a really big deal.

Mark Henry - SmackDown to ECW. SmackDown head writer Michael Hayes returns from a suspension based on getting drunk and making racial comments towards Henry, and when Hayes comes back Henry is immediately drafted away. You would have to be pretty foolish not to see that there is a correlation there.

As far as what he does on ECW, it’s clear that the WWE have wanted to push him at a high level for many years, even to the point where he was main eventing big four PPVs with Kurt Angle only a couple of years ago. However, his career in WWE has been failure after failure after failure, with bad matches and horrible promos cancelling out the fact that he’s big.

Size always helps in WWE, but when you don’t have the talent or political influence to back it up, you’re going nowhere, and hence Henry finds himself on ECW. The first thought that comes to mind when I heard Henry was moving is that I pity Matt Hardy. From being underutilized on SmackDown, he finally looks like getting a main event push and he’s going to be lumbered with heatless Henry.

Jamie Noble - SmackDown to Raw. I think with Super Crazy moving and with Evan Bourne already there, ECW would have been a better move for Noble as far as being an in-ring performer goes.

On screen, besides a short rivalry with Chuck Palumbo on SmackDown he hasn’t really done all that much since coming back to the WWE in 2005. Yes, 2005. He’s in that Val Venis and Stevie Richards role of reliable company man that seems to escape being fired yet never gets a push.

And since ECW is moving to being taped on Mondays I expected all those guys to be on the SmackDown roster since I’m guessing that’s when dark matches and tryouts will take place now. I’d be surprised if he makes more than 2 or 3 appearances on Raw before the end of the year to be honest. And since he works as a backstage agent, which is probably the real reason this move was made, I’ll add the caveat that appearing in a suit to break up a pull-apart brawl involving some real stars doesn’t count.

Trevor Murdoch - Raw to SmackDown. Here’s a move that just had to happen. When the WWE broke up Murdoch and Lance Cade, the way the WWE works meant that Cade was always going to get the push as the star of the team.

He has the height, body-type and bland charismaless look that the WWE seem to love. Murdoch is different, he stands out from the crowd in the WWE’s current lineup and he needed to move to a different brand to Cade. He has the potential on SmackDown to be a fun mid-card player and I hope that’s the role he finds himself in rather than just being a jobber.

Much like Festus, his gimmick is something fun and different, he doesn’t have the standard bland WWE look and they should take advantage of that. I’d even keep him singing, since no matter what anyone says, comedy when done right is an important part of a wrestling show.

Big Daddy V - ECW to SmackDown. Well SmackDown lost one fat useless piece of shit to ECW so they’re gaining one from ECW. I’m hoping he doesn’t do much of anything to be honest.

V is a horrible wrestler, and “he’s big and fat” just isn’t reason enough to give someone a push in 2008 if they can’t wrestle, can’t talk, and can’t make people care about them. I’ve no idea why he’s still in the company, never mind being involved in a draft.

Deuce - SmackDown to Raw. I’m so happy that we’re not getting a Deuce v. Domino feud. With Deuce being the son of Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, he is a contender to join the rumoured stable of second generation wrestlers. He could also go back to his developmental Deuce Shade character where he played a crooked card dealer, maybe even in a criminal alliance with Cryme Tyme, playing a modern day Vinnie Vegas.

That could be some fun, but again I don’t think Deuce will ever mean anything in the larger context of the company.

Seperating him from Domino at least gives him a chance to stand out, and you’d have to assume a gimmick change is coming, since 1950s throwback doesn’t fit to a live show in 2008, especially when Domino seems to still be doing the gimmick on SmackDown.

The best he can hope for is feuds with the lower-card guys like Bob Holly and Santino Marella, and a role as a minor player in the Dibiase stable.

DH Smith - Raw to SmackDown. Smith has been a failure on Raw. He showed a total lack of personality and charisma, he failed a Wellness Test just before being brought into the company, and he was a total heat killer.

Moving him to SmackDown, the same show as his cousin Natalya means we could get the 2008 Hart Foundation, but I don’t see that happening. I think basically he’s just a name they’ve moved with little intention of doing anything with him. The fact that he’s moved away from the brand that has Dibiase and Rhodes suggests that he’s not thought of very highly in the WWE if they will move him away from a storyline where he fits right in.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see him out of the company by year’s end.

Hornswoggle - SmackDown to ECW. I love that they did Hornswoggle’s move first, just so that certain sections of the internet could wank themselves silly over Finlay “finally being separated from the damn midget holding him back” only to have the rug pulled out from under them within a few minutes.

I do think this is a bad move. SmackDown has long been seen as the network that draws a younger audience, and they already lost Rey and Batista, so why lose the most child-friendly character on the show? The thing with Hornswoggle as far as future opponents goes is that you know what you’re getting. He’ll do comedy matches where the kids in the crowd pop and nothing more.

I don’t want him in big storylines where something like the JBL beatdown happens again because that was very tough and uncomfortable to watch.

Finlay - SmackDown to ECW. As mentioned with Matt Hardy, ECW needed veterans who can work with just about anybody and teach the marketable guys of the future how to work WWE style matches.

Since his success in teaching the women’s division during the days of Trish Stratus, Victoria, Molly Holly and Lita amongst others, Finlay has moved back to the ring himself, and while he’s put on some decent matches, I think his biggest asset to the company is as a trainer.

The veteran role in ECW is perfect for him, and the young guys there will benefit greatly from working with him - which is one reason among many that I’m surprised to see Kofi Kingston and Shelton Benjamin leave ECW in this draft.

Super Crazy - Raw to ECW. Who cares? I know he’s an ECW original but to be honest that means nothing these days. I’m surprised he’s still there, and again I’m surprised Kingston left so that they couldn’t do the Jamaican Me Crazy tag team for the in-joke on Mike Adamle, even just once. He’ll be a jobber.

Chuck Palumbo - SmackDown to Raw. This is a very interesting one. The only time on SmackDown that Palumbo got any semblance of a decent push was his short feud with Jamie Noble.

Palumbo got over as a dickhead heel, to the point where people were talking of him as a future Undertaker opponent. But once the Noble issue was done, he rarely appeared on TV. I think it was a missed opportunity, and possibly something that could be capitalised on by a different writing team in new surroundings.

Even though Rey Mysterio also moved from SmackDown, Palumbo v. Rey would be a fresh matchup and Rey works a style in terms of building sympathy and putting a larger heel over that could make Palumbo look like a killer, and the same goes for Shawn Michaels.

The competition between brands might even be a reason to get Palumbo a bigger push, in that Brian Gerwertz might see that Michael Hayes stumbled onto something with Palumbo and then let it go, and he might see it as one up for Raw if he could turn Palumbo into something.

Brian Kendrick - Raw to SmackDown. This is the final nail in the coffin of the underused and underappreciated Kendrick and Paul London tag team, who were moved to Raw a year ago only to rarely appear on the show outside of the occasional two minute jobs.

With the cruiserweight division killed by the title reign of Hornswoggle and the abandonment of the title I don’t see a role for Kendrick on SmackDown, especially as Noble has left and he would have been the most obvious choice to start a new tag team.

It wouldn’t surprise me if both London and Kendrick are out of the company in the next year.

Matt Striker - ECW to Raw. I don’t see him getting over as a wrestler, and with Big Daddy V moving to SmackDown that left him nobody to manage, so maybe he attaches himself to a new guy as a mouthpiece. But I really don’t see where he fits.

Maria - Raw to SmackDown. Maria isn’t the kind of person whose role can change too much on different brands. She’s the ditzy girl who occasionally wrestles, is strictly a babyface and is popular on live shows.

I don’t see much of anything else for her to do, unless she supplants Eve Torres and continues doing backstage interviews as she did on Raw. It’s such a minor move that you wonder if she’s dating someone from Raw in real life and the WWE just moved her to put them on a different touring schedule because WWE management are pricks when it comes to stuff like that.

Shelton Benjamin - ECW to SmackDown. Shelton is an interesting case. He looked good in tag team matches opposite Eddie Guerrero in 2003, in one singles match opposite Shawn Michaels in 2005, and in doing spectacular spots in Money In The Bank ladder matches.

And that, interspersed with years of mediocrity, blown spots and laziness, has apparently made him underpushed and underrated and a great wrestler who would be World Champion if the WWE weren’t so evil - if some people’s opinions are to be believed.

I think you sum Shelton up by saying he’s an athletic guy who can do great spots when he hits them, but doesn’t understand that there’s more to being a top star in the WWE than the ability to jump high. He’s tried comedy heel, arrogant heel, underdog babyface, great athlete, chickenshit, and anything in between, yet he keeps getting chances and people always say “this time will be where Shelton can get his real shot and become a star” but it never happens.

With SmackDown having a top talent roster of Edge, HHH, Undertaker, Hardy, MVP, Kennedy and Umaga, I do not see Shelton breaking into that group. I could see him as a midcarder or possibly in a tag team with a monster like V who he can hide behind, but otherwise I think it’s more of the same.

Carlito - Raw to SmackDown. After going public with his criticisms of the WWE in recent weeks, including taking shots at the marriage of HHH and Stephanie McMahon, you knew Carlito was in the dog house.

In recent times he has been part of an entertaining comedy heel tag team with Santino Marella, but after gearing up to win the tag team titles, they never got the belts and turned quickly into jobbers. Santino was the guy who carried the entertainment portion of that team, and without him Carlito is, to quote a great promo by Ric Flair, a lazy underachieving son of a bitch.

I think HHH gets a squash win over him in the next few weeks for sure. The thing that might save Carlito and give him a renewed push is the Hispanic market. In Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio, SmackDown has had big Hispanic draws that have helped push forward the ratings of that show for the past six years, and with Rey moving to Raw, Carlito is the Hispanic replacement.

If he proves to be even half the draw Rey is to that market, the WWE will have little choice but to push him at least a little bit.

Layla - ECW to Raw. With Melina turning babyface I guess Raw needs another heel, but she’s way down on experience from even the average women wrestlers on SmackDown, never mind the top girls on Raw like Beth, Melina and Mickie. I won’t lie about this, however, I’m hoping her moving to the A-show means she’ll be the WWE Diva who poses for Playboy in the lead-up to next year’s WrestleMania.

Kofi Kingston - ECW to Raw. This was a bad move. Kingston showed good charisma and promise on ECW, but he’s so inexperienced that I think moving him to Raw at this point in his career is a killer for him.

Being put alongside Fit Finlay or Matt Hardy for a few months, and it would also enhance him not only as a performer but also as a star in the eyes of the fans. I think he’s a potential star of the future, but I fear that moving to Raw might mean the horse has bolted too early.

In summary, I think the WWE did a much better job of the Raw draft picks than the supplemental ones, and for a company that prides itself on dealings with the top stars, that can be considered a success for them.

Of course, we won’t really know how things have gone for a few months yet - after all the people who benefited the most from last year’s draft were The Miz and The Major Brothers, and at the time nobody would have predicted that.

Thanks for reading and supporting WWEPreview.com, and as always I can be reached for feedback at mark@wwepreview.com

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