With the 2008 WWE draft looming, I’ve decided to look at the past talent swaps, next up is 2005’s edition.

You would have thought that WWE’s creative brain trust would have learnt some lessons after some of the negative aspects that resulted from the original draft; this column will look at what did happen, and the resulting effect on both RAW and Smackdown.

(i) RAW started the process this year, and the first draftee, WWE Champion John Cena, certainly looked poised to make more of an impact than the previous year’s Shelton Benjamin.

By May 2005, Cena was WWE’s most popular act, with none of the love/hate affair with the audience that has characterised him in more recent years. Programming him against mega heel JBL both before and after Wrestlemania really didn’t give the fans a choice in deciding who to boo, but the opponents he would be matched with on RAW would end up dividing WWE devotee opinion on Cena.

Chris Jericho and the now Smackdown-based Christian both had strong underlying fan bases, and the ‘Cena Sucks’ chants first became audible during the three-way dance match at the Vengeance PPV, while even Jericho’s ultra-annoying whiny heel persona couldn’t stop a divided crowd being very audible at the Summerslam event.

The ever- popular Kurt Angle (even when he was supposed to be a strong heel) did not help matters over the Autumn months when he was programmed with the Champ for a multi- PPV run, and the stigma of the crowd booing Cena has stuck since, despite his definite improvement as a worker and all round act.

In this case the draft proved that Cena could headline on the ‘bigger’ brand, essentially becoming the face of the company, while weathering the challenges of hostile crowds and different styles of opponents, certainly a big positive step forward in many different aspects for the ‘Bad Man’.

(ii) It would have been pretty daft to have both top champions on one brand and so it was inevitable that Batista would be drafted to Smackdown; he was, at the conclusion of the programme.

Batista was another newly minted headline act, having feuded exclusively with former Evolution leader HHH in the run up to, and aftermath of, Wrestlemania XX. Batista’s test on Smackdown was more about maintaining his incredible popularity when put in mediocre matches with JBL, who big Dave has since gone on to accuse of sandbagging him in his matches, in retaliation for his earlier criticism of the Smackdown brand.

Batista’s popularity would later be assured in his Autumn feud with Eddie Guerrero, that was cut short for tragically obvious reasons, before eventually vacating the World Championship in January 2006 after accumulating a catalogue of severe injuries.

Throughout this time, Batista a truly popular babyface with fans, and thus the 2005 draft also did nothing to damage his career, instead giving Smackdown a bonafide main eventer who is still a huge part of that brand.

(iii) Around this time, Kurt Angle was also drafted to RAW, the second major Smackdown wrestler to leave. Angle had previously been involved with an insipid feud against Booker T (which still produced, IMO, the two best matches that I’ve seen from T in a long time, at Judgment Day and the following Smackdown), but the rape overtones were a bit much really.

On the RAW side, Angle was immediately plugged back into his Wrestlemania feud with Shawn Michaels, which produced a stellar effort at Vengeance, and went on to have great matches against opponents as diverse as John Cena and Ric Flair over the Summer and into the Autumn.

By 2005 Angle had evolved into such a superlative worker and all round character that he could easily be put anywhere as a world class main event player, having good matches against a wide variety of opponents. This was the case with Angle’s RAW run, as he was used to amp up John Cena’s ring work, before being moved back to Smackdown as a placeholder Champion after Batista’s injury in January 2006.

Angle’s superior ability meant that wherever he was, he could be relied upon to produce the goods, therefore the 2005 draft made little difference to him as he kept up his output regardless of what brand he was on.

(iv) As well as exchanging Heavyweight Champions, the two brands also exchanged super workers, as Chris Benoit headed to Smackdown.

Benoit had spent the preceding year enjoying the push of a life time in the main event picture on RAW, headlining in consistently strong matches over the summer, before taking a back seat to the HHH/Batista story line in early 2005. Benoit’s Smackdown run would ultimately herald the end of his main event career, as he was almost immediately relegated to US Title status.

While the quality of his matches did not decrease, Benoit’s televised place in the WWE ranks certainly took a tumble following his move to the blue brand.

(v) Big Show was the next RAW draftee - he had not really been doing anything on Smackdown, losing a novelty sumo match to Akebono at Wrestlemania and losing again to Carlito of all people at the Judgment Day PPV.

Unfortunately Show would carry on doing little of note throughout the summer, having a better than expected (but still….) match against Gene Snitsky at Unforgiven before going on to form a standard monster tag team with Kane which duly broke up resulting in a feud the like of which we had not seen since 2002 (or 1999), the last time that these feuded!

Big Show’s career would only regain a modicum of respectability when he defected to ECW 2006, so his 2005 RAW draft was pretty dull in the grand scheme of things.

(vi) Christian, Smackdown’s next pick, was interesting case. Christian had been on the verge of breaking out, but unfortunately the level of popularity and fan support that he was garnering (a Birmingham NEC RAW taping that I attended around this time saw Christian being cheered against Batista to such an extent that the whole crowd had to be overdubbed).

Christian was another draftee who swiftly became stuck in the US Title scene, contesting a match against Booker T at the Great American Bash and for the title at the No Mercy PPV, but WWE’s consistent typecasting of the talented wrestler led to him becoming disillusioned with his career with WWE in general. One thing led to another and Christian ended up being the first WWE wrestler to walk away from WWE and into the closest thing to a rival TNA, where he has enjoyed periodical man event status ever since.

In this case, Christian’s move to Smackdown was an absolute waste for WWE, who ended up losing out in the long run, where they could have probably ended up using him more productively.

(vii) Another midcarder to make the jump was Carlito. While he is seen as nothing more than the lazy less talented member of a tag team with Santino Marella nowadays, back in 2005 Carlito was seen by management as having serious potential.

On his arrival to RAW he was immediately pushed hard, winning the IC belt of Shelton Benjamin in his first match and going on to feud with Ric Flair in the Autumn. Carlio would go on to have a mediocre match with Mick Foley at Taboo Tuesday and was then involved in back to back main events at Survivor Series and New Years Revolution.

However this push was all for nought, as Carlito has so far failed to move any further up the car, slipping further back through 2006, before finally losing all main event credibility after decisively dropping a feud to Randy Orton in Autumn 2006. WWE certainly tried with Carlito - they saw something there, but he has yet to justify management’s support, and rumours of him leaving continue to be heard.

The 2005 draft could have worked here, but frustratingly Carlito had essentially proved to be not worthy of the faith that was placed in him by those that matter.

(viii) Personally one of my least favourite wrestlers ever, Muhammad Hassan, was the next Smackdown pick. This guy was shoved down viewers’ throats despite being awful in the ring and having a character that was designed to get a reaction from the most moronic ‘yee ha’ jingoistic section of the American fan base.

The fact that he was useless from almost every standpoint was not helped by the way that WWE went out of its way to produce offensive storylines for him. In particular the garrotting of the Undertaker and virtually implied sacrifice of Diavari left a bad taste in the mouth, and by virtue of it being played out on the Smackdown after the London July bombings, the Hassan character was justifiably kicked off television by angry networks.

Whereas before WWE had actually planned to put the World Championship on this joker on Summerslam, they now had to pretty much eliminate the character, accomplished in spectacular at (Oh the irony) the Great American Bash. It was a mercy killing, and in my opinion the Hassan character was doomed regardless of what brand it was on.

(ix) The injured Rob Van Dam, fresh off an exciting ‘shoot’ interview at the inaugural One night Stand PPV, was the final RAW pick.

RVD’s exciting new character was given another opportunity to cut a decent interview on his first RAW appearance, but due to his injury being far from healed, he was one of the first sacrifices to the previously mentioned Carlito push. He would not appear on television again until Royal Rumble 2006, and it took him a further two months to work out ring rust.

Then, essentially a year after the 2005 draft, RVD defected to ECW, essentially meaning that his RAW draft was another big waste of time, as WWE was only able to get four productive months out of his whole tenure on the red brand.

(x) Randy Orton was the last major draft pick, going to Smackdown to continue his feud with the Undertaker.

This rivalry would continue for the remainder of 2005, and while Randy would ultimately come out on the losing end, it really did nothing to hurt his credibility. The real problem here was Orton himself, as coming out from the Undertaker feud, he was booked to beat Rumble winner Rey Mysterio at No Way Out 2006, and was originally intended to win the title at Wrestlemania XXIII.

However, his personal demons would get in the way and Orton was suspended almost immediately after the big event and removed from the title picture. Orton was another main eventer who was moved simply to create or extend relatively fresh rivalries, and one whose run on their new brand following the 2005 draft was handicapped more by the actual wrestler rather than any creative misuse. He would end up back on RAW following his return from suspension later in 2006…

The 2005 draft was definitely more of a star studded event than the original one. More main eventers where used to provide a bigger impact on the respective brands, and in most cases the talent swap did succeed in providing fresh match ups at the top.

However the casualties of the draft are still relatively high, with two of those then perceived as main eventers, in Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit no longer with the company, albeit for totally different reasons. The midcarders who were expected to step up their game either failed (in the case of Carlito and Hassan), or have since left the company anyway (as is true with Christian and RVD).

That Cena, Batista and Big Show are still around in WWE today is testament to both their staying power as characters and the fact that if management has faith in you, then no amount of ‘personal issues’ will get in the way of a good money making push!

Next week’s penultimate column looks at the 2007 draft and its effect on WWE. I’m relatively new to the column writing field, and am eager for any feedback: please send any to james@wwepreview.com. Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed the column.