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Raw is The Draft Night 2 - 10/4/2021


Dolfan in NYC

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Going into the WWE Draft, the original plan was to split up the Street Profits with each member going their own way to their own brand.

The idea was first reported by PWInsider Monday and discussed by Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio.

The original concept was Montez Ford moving to Raw while Angelo Dawkins would remain on SmackDown. However, WWE decided to split up the team of T-Bar (Raw) and Mace (SmackDown) instead.

Ford and Dawkins were drafted to Raw with the first pick of the fourth round Monday. Ford's wife, Bianca Belair, was taken with Raw's second pick of the first round on last Friday's draft kickoff on SmackDown.

Originally drafted to Raw in October 2019, Ford and Dawkins have held both the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team titles along with the NXT Tag Team titles.

The two-night draft event concluded Monday with the new rosters taking effect on Friday, October 22nd, the day after Crown Jewel.

Dodged a bullet there. Vince doesn't like tag teams.

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2 hours ago, Craig H said:

While both SD and Raw have gotten worse than they were when the brand split was first brought back, if you didn't have a brand split, then you never get Kofi or Big E with a run on top.

We still haven't had them have a run on top. Big E is the secondary champion because Roman is obviously the top guy right now. Kofi was the secondary champion because the Seth / Brock match was clearly the number one spot. The brand split just waters everything down and makes everything mean less. You merge the brands and make one world championship and Kofi or Big E get a run with that, then you can say they had a run on top. As it is now by your definition can you really say Jinder Mahal & Jack Swagger had a "run on top"?

 

2 hours ago, Craig H said:

The major problem with Raw and SD and WWE in general is the problem that has existed for nearly 20 years. There's too many rematches, there's nothing to look forward to, Vince has completely forgotten how to effectively use enhancement talent/jobbers in lieu of, I don't know, re-running Big E vs Apollo Crews for the 14th time, and the writing is almost entirely terrible.

Totally agree with you here. Which is why having a pool of 100 options for Crews to work vs only having 30 options is a way to not run rematches into the ground. You expand the roster and you automatically freshen up the potential options. That's not to say it would change the shows, because rematch to death is a crutch they will use regardless if there's 10 guys or 1,000 guys to pick from.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I'm just of the opinion that the brand split sucks. As a kid in the 80s having Hogan be a champ on one show and Savage being the champ on another show would have been farrrr less entertaining than them getting to work with each other. That's the lens I'm viewing it through. Sure Jake & Piper & Dibiase would have had "runs on top" but the quality would have been much worse than what we got. Merging the roster would cut the championships in half and instantly make the top titles way more important again.

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I like the Street Profits, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that Montez has a lot more of an upside than Dawkins. Not giving him a singles run somewhere down the line is probably leaving money on the table.  Hopefully Vince realized that sooner instead of later.  Big E should have gotten a singles push several years ago.

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So while can mostly agree that Dana Brooke has sucked and probably won't get better than average in the ring,  Corey Graves basically implying on commentary she should be fired is pretty fucking low even for him

Edited by hammerva
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53 minutes ago, Eoae said:

I like the Street Profits, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that Montez has a lot more of an upside than Dawkins. Not giving him a singles run somewhere down the line is probably leaving money on the table.  Hopefully Vince realized that sooner instead of later.  Big E should have gotten a singles push several years ago.

Ford definitely has potential as a singles, but that doesn't mean he needs to break away from Dawkins for it to happen.

4 minutes ago, hammerva said:

So while can mostly agree that Dana Brooke has sucked and probably won't get better than average in the ring,  Corey Graves basically implying on commentary she should be fired is pretty fucking low even for him

I thought it was amusing but also cold as fuck. Kind of doubt Corey came up with that completely on his own though so I'm not sure how much he should be blamed. Still, realistically Brooke still being around is kind of befuddling considering the women they released during the summer. 

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Yeah quick things from the WON radio show this morning (I was too lazy to do this earlier)

Dolfan already covered that they broke up all the women's tag teams

Side note to that - apparently on the show it looked like Nattie left Tamina but that was by accident as neither knew they were being split up yet. Dave said he was told that Nattie was just walking off and thought Tamina was right behind her (but she wasn't)

Natural already mentioned the Street Profits thing

Regarding Gable Steveson - apparently the WWE bought a gym in the area and are sending coaches out to train Steveson at the same time that he is still training for his amateur season (Dave thought that this is absurd and at some point they are gonna have to stop the pro wrestling training as Steveson can't risk getting hurt for the NCAA season). And no Meltzer didn't name the coaches they were sending.

Dave figures Sasha is gonna have to be the top women's babyface on SDL since Charlotte should never be a face and Shayna hasn't been booked like a face (despite the crowd loving her beating people up). He also thinks that they are just gonna trade the RAW and SDL titles which will allow Charlotte to add a title reign to her count (since when they traded the tag titles last year they counted that as a new reign)

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27 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Dave figures Sasha is gonna have to be the top women's babyface on SDL since Charlotte should never be a face and Shayna hasn't been booked like a face (despite the crowd loving her beating people up). He also thinks that they are just gonna trade the RAW and SDL titles which will allow Charlotte to add a title reign to her count (since when they traded the tag titles last year they counted that as a new reign)

I don't understand how they can count that as a new reign. Shouldn't you beat someone for it to be "new"?

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19 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

None of that's really lighting the world on fire though. 

Big E has plenty of people he can face.

Speak for yourself. I'm very into the idea of Kofi and Nakamura as challengers. Drew significantly less so. admittedly. Beyond that you never know if they decide to elevate someone as a challenger or turn a heel.

Also not sure why anyone would compare a new, first time champ in Big E to Roman for fresh challengers. Damn near everyone is a fresh match for E because he hasn't been a singles competitor for most of the last 5+ years.

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27 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I don't understand how they can count that as a new reign. Shouldn't you beat someone for it to be "new"?

Not disagreeing with you but the WWE set their own precedent with the tag title swap last year. If you look on their website under title reigns for each title belt you see that both New Day and Street Profits are credited with "new" reigns on Oct 12, 2020

Plus as we all know - sometimes the WWE will just hand a dude a title (see Triple H)

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16 hours ago, hammerva said:

So while can mostly agree that Dana Brooke has sucked and probably won't get better than average in the ring,  Corey Graves basically implying on commentary she should be fired is pretty fucking low even for him

Good on Dana Brooke. Corey Graves is a tool.

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On 10/5/2021 at 12:29 PM, NoFistsJustFlips said:

We still haven't had them have a run on top. Big E is the secondary champion because Roman is obviously the top guy right now. Kofi was the secondary champion because the Seth / Brock match was clearly the number one spot.

Didn't Seth and Brock curtain-jerk 'Mania the same year Bryan and Kofi rivalled Becky-Rhonda as the match with the most buzz? I'll give you Big E being secondary to Roman, but I don't see the argument for Kofi being a secondary champion.

On 10/5/2021 at 12:29 PM, NoFistsJustFlips said:

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I'm just of the opinion that the brand split sucks. As a kid in the 80s having Hogan be a champ on one show and Savage being the champ on another show would have been farrrr less entertaining than them getting to work with each other. That's the lens I'm viewing it through.

I agree in theory having one overall champion is better. In practice, I agree with Craig that WWE's writing is generally even worse when there's no brand split.

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12 hours ago, tbarrie said:

Didn't Seth and Brock curtain-jerk 'Mania the same year Bryan and Kofi rivalled Becky-Rhonda as the match with the most buzz? I'll give you Big E being secondary to Roman, but I don't see the argument for Kofi being a secondary champion.

You use curtain jerk as if it's a negative here. The two most important matches on a show are the opener and the closer. The women main evented. The second best slot was the opener. Bryan vs Kofi went on later in the show but that doesn't make it more important. Smackdown was still on USA and still the B show at the time. (Kofi losing the title in a squash was the first Fox Smackdown). So no, Kofi vs Bryan was not the top men's title match at Mania. The champion of the A show was Lesnar. His match with Seth was promoted as a bigger deal. Bryan vs Kofi was clearly what the fans cared more about. But it was not positioned as the top title.

This is all subjective tho so if you disagree I understand. But it's pretty clear to me at least Lesnar as Universal champ was "the man" at the time.

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3 hours ago, Hagan said:

Yeah - Kofi was a nice moment at Mania but it was a midcard match. Shit, let's be honest - Miz vs Shane and Hunter vs Batista were promoted and pushed much more heavily so Kofi and Bryan was 5th from the top. 

Well, I think of it now as having been tentpole matches for the overall show.    Starting with the shock title change (Brock --> Seth), midcard filler (with Shane/Miz being better than it had any right to be), going to the massive moment of Kofi winning his first title, more midcard filler (with the absolutely dreadful HHH/Batista here), and the coronation of Becky topping it off. 

Now, I'm not saying the promotion wasn't WWE Senior Executive-centric, but the way you watch it now with some distance is 100% different than then.  

That being said, it's literally 7 1/2 hours long and aside from the Kofi match, should never be watched again.  

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8 hours ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

You use curtain jerk as if it's a negative here. The two most important matches on a show are the opener and the closer. The women main evented. The second best slot was the opener.

I've encountered this theory before, but I don't know. I suspect if you went through 'Mania history, you wouldn't find many examples where the opening match was clearly the second biggest. If you want to actually do it, I'd be interested to read it though.

8 hours ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

Bryan vs Kofi went on later in the show but that doesn't make it more important. Smackdown was still on USA and still the B show at the time. (Kofi losing the title in a squash was the first Fox Smackdown). So no, Kofi vs Bryan was not the top men's title match at Mania. The champion of the A show was Lesnar. His match with Seth was promoted as a bigger deal. Bryan vs Kofi was clearly what the fans cared more about. But it was not positioned as the top title.

I may have lost track of what was being discussed, but to me, whom the fans care about is more important than what the office thinks. Did Vince and company see Seth as the "A" champ and Kofi as the "B" champ post-'Mania? You're likely right that they did, but they were wrong. The fans outvoted them.

8 hours ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

 

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The theory in the PPV era at least is that you want a hot/good match to open the show and jazz up the crowd. One reason why, IIRC. If in the NWA/WCW, they used some combination of RNR, MX, Southern Boys, Fantasrics in that slot. 

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1 hour ago, tbarrie said:

I've encountered this theory before, but I don't know. I suspect if you went through 'Mania history, you wouldn't find many examples where the opening match was clearly the second biggest. If you want to actually do it, I'd be interested to read it though.

Yeah I didn't explain myself well on this one. I'm speaking from my experience wrestling / running events. That's how I view it. If I'm not in the main let me open that sucker up. The crowd is always hot for an opener. It's the same philosophy I use when laying out a card. I do think it's a factor in how WWE books it's cards as well, but I didn't mean to say it's a trend that's an absolute that we can actually track. But I mean Wrestlemania 10 & 30 definitely use that formula. Bret vs Owen & Bryan vs Triple H were hot openers that rivaled the main events in importance. Tito vs The executioner at Wrestlemania 1 not so much lol.

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It's interesting that you mentioned 10 & 30, because I was bored on a train and actually went over what the opening match was for each Wrestlemania, and those are the two I pegged as hard to classify. In both cases the opening match was an integral part of the main event storyline, which to me is a different thing from being the second biggest match in its own right. But on the other hand, they certainly weren't throw-away matches like what opened the show a lot of years.

(For the record, I found maybe six or seven where you could argue that the opening match was the second biggest, and I think I was being pretty generous.)

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