Official WWE Draft 2024 Thread: Raw 4/29 (Page 7/8)

I just finished SmackDown. I enjoyed it. Probably because I was able to fast forward through all the commercials and BS.

Can we please get a new WWE Championship the Smackdown after Backlash? Thanks.

I give it a D grade. Carmelo as a top pick? I realize he’s good, but I don’t watch NXT, so I didn’t really care. But he’s certainly not a bigger star than Randy Orton or AJ Styles. That NXT lady I have never heard of in my life, so it meant nothing to me. I know who Carmelo is. I know he’s a hot prospect. So his drafting feels important. I just disagree with its placement because there’s no logic to it. Bron Breaker, Andrade, and Nia just arrived so them getting drafted feels like nothing to me. I was so hype for this show and I’m just let down. Even if Raw turns out great, tonight felt squandered to ke. If you disagree, you disagree. The 2010s drafts felt like a bigger deal and you knew everything was going to be squandered because WWE was pretty bad that whole decade save for some bright spots here and there.

I expected more because they’ve been hyping up this new era. This should’ve been their chance to make a statement and shake things up. I wanted something like the 2002 draft, the greatest WWE draft of all time. That draft felt like a statement. I wanted that feeling again. Instead everyone feels like they stayed where they were drafted last year. I wanted to see NXT get some draft picks, too, to help build that show up to feel like, at the very least, ECW. I wanted to see maybe AJ Styles, maybe Kevin Owens go there, put NXT on their back, and make it feel important again like it did before Vince took control of it.

But this post has been pretty negative and I’ve been a Negative Nancy lately. So I’m going to end on something positive. Raw hasn’t happened yet. We might see some good shuffling of the undercard over the next week. We might see some big surprises for NXT that make me want to watch it again. And even if none of that happens, WWE is way better than it was in 2021. I feel reinvigorated about the company for the first time in over a decade. We’ve got new champions across the board compared to last year’s draft. A dude tried to murder another dude with a car last week. Everybody’s become a lot more interesting than they were in 2022. It definitely feels like a new era. Maybe if we’re lucky, Raw and Smackdown will start to look different beyond color swaps. I’m talking Smackdown fist and lightning graphics vs Raw’s giant askew tron and industrial metal plating everywhere and fire graphics.

Looks like they were going for Melo's Springboard Clothesline into a Cody Cutter, but completely missed the timing. Really hope Cody didn't mess his shoulder up.

Here's an idea for drafts going forward. On Smackdown only Smackdown and NXT talents can be drafted, same goes for Raw. Only Raw and NXT talents can be drafted.

I get why this year they said the Champions would be exempt, but I think that should only apply to the World Championships. They could have switched the US and Intercontinental Championships this year why re-establishing the World and WWE Championship on their respective brands. Since the Women's Tag Team Championships are defended on all brands those champions should be excluded from the draft. When they lose the titles to a RAW or Smackdown or NXT team that team takes their place and now former champions become a part of the brand that they just lost the championship to.

This way when it comes to Smackdown and Raw you know that about half of the roster is leaving and half is staying. It'll make things even more interesting.

I would also add NXT to the "Social Media / Supplemental Draft" where they can draft the same number of picks they lost in the draft. So tonight NXT should have been able to add two picks from the surplus picks. Hell Ivar and the OC have been featured on NXT over the last few weeks and those picks could have easily have gone to NXT instead of the over bloated Smackdown and Raw rosters.

It’s dry but does the format really actually bother anyone? It’s just something to fill time and move like a dozen or so guys at once.

I guess hyping it up like it’s going to revolutionize the product and then it’s just a dozen mid-carders/jobbers changing shows… comes off very WCW/TNA/[redacted]-esque.

Yh that was a waste of time: reeks of they have no real plan to make it fun and they just go through the motions, like why bother then.

The original draft set a fine template that works for hard resets, you need time to lead in where things are mixed or you do it straight after mania.
Draft lotto (04) set a decent refresh template that worked.
2005 which could only really be done with the talents that they had then which made it great fun because you had those shock switches.
I have no idea why they don’t recycle those 3 versions round every so often to make this enjoyable to watch or invest any energy in, this format they been doing now for years is dead shit.

So I guess no more weight belts while Cody is champion? Also it looks like he can’t close his coat with the title on.

It's no big deal tbh