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SDL is The Draft : Night 1 10/1/21


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1 hour ago, scatterheart said:

Typical. No mention of The Demon and the rope break that took away his superpowers. What a chump. I'm not particularly a fan of The Demon, but needlessly throwing the gimmick away like that is a sign of where they're at these days. Constant hotshotting and desperate fly by booking, with no long term thinking behind it. Shitty, reckless booking that just damages everyone involved.

Hit Row actually has me interested though. [b]Their promo on NXT this week was a scary look into the future, as they did the Main roster talk show host promo. Hype men for The Brand, hitting all the cues and buzzwords.[/b] Swerve Scott is great and I'm making the mistake of being excited for him. The rest of the group belong on Dark. I'm fascinated to see how it plays out for them.

Typical. Let's redo the Historic WrestleMania Main Event between Sasha Banks and Bianca. And lets frame it as the backdrop for the Charlotte and Becky show.

That's true!

It had such a 'Street Prophets talk about what's coming up on Raw for eons before actually wrestling a match' vibe to it.

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Probably entering old man yelling at clouds territory but here's how you insert some internal logic into the draft and make it actually fun to watch in a few easy steps.


1. Rebrand the titles. Get rid of the Raw & Smackdown names from titles. Universal for one set, World for the other. Then you pair the titles in value. World men's & Universal men's in one group, United States & Intercontinental in another, Universal & World Tags, Universal women's & World women's title. 24/7 & Women's Tag Team Titles are co branded. So you can pick the champion but the title isn't exclusive to your show. (I mean I would scrap the 24/7 title, and make a second set of Women's Tags to be brand specific but trying to make this as realistic as possible to the current state of WWE).

2. Title parity. You say right off the bat champions are eligible to be drafted, but once a champion is drafted their counter part is automatically on the other show. So you can switch any title you want, but both shows stay even. Say Raw gets the first pick and picks Universal Champion Roman Reigns, then World Champion Big E is automatically on Smackdown without Fox needing to use a pick on him. (This also helps alleviate some of the ego problems of getting drafted lower than you think you should).

3. Make it a shoot. We always hear about the network execs being upset about so and so being on the other show. Let them legit make the picks. Realism sells. And it's not like WWE booking is so hyper specific that it actually matters. Let the execs make the picks. Give them some agency over what their shows look like. You can't tell me with the haphazard way they currently do it that this would be too erratic. Let them make the picks and you write new stories going forward starting with the season premiere each year. That would actually be exciting to watch.

4. Give them power to make trades during the year. If Fox really likes how Bailey looks when she returns but she's on Raw, let Fox make an offer of their people to USA. If they agree allow the switches. I mean it's all a work anyways. WWE should be able to take any situation and write their way out of it if that happens.


Yes I know there's zero percent chance it would happen. But it's really not that hard to have an internal structure that puts real world logic into the draft each year.

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More drafted (Talking Smack)

 Raw
 Nia Jax
 Doudrop
 Zelina Vega
 John Morrison
 Reggie
 R-Truth
 Drake Maverick
 T-Bar
 Tozawa
 Alpha Academy
 Apollo Crews
 Commander Azeez

Smackdown

Toni Storm
Aliyah
Mace
Drew Gulak
Mansoor
Mustafa Ali
 

They broke up Mace and T Bar.

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19 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Breaking up New Day, again, is so fucking stupid. 

I agree. The only reason I could see for them doing it at some point would be if they isolated Woods instead and really pushed him on his own as he has the most prove. Obviously that's not in the cards here though.

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1 hour ago, The Natural said:

Kofi Kingston wins the WWE Championship in 2019.

Big E wins the WWE Championship in 2021.

Xavier Woods wins the WWE Championship in 2023.

I'd like that. A stable made up of every member wins a world championship.

3MB is just Heath Slater away from getting there as well.  Then you could have the most prolific 3 vs 3 feud since ever.

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The WWE brand extension fundamentally doesn't work and never has. The reason it doesn't work is because WWE can not truly allow SmackDown and Raw to compete with one another. Already they are having to manage expectations between their broadcast partners and not upsetting them that one gets cooler toys over the other. 

It's not a real competition. It's a facade of competition because of the Monday Night Wars. Having separate rosters makes no sense. When they get scared about ratings, they send stars from one show to another. Or they drop the brand rules entirely when it's convenient. 

Becky Lynch was allowed to switch to SmackDown because...why? Wrestlers can just declare themselves for the Royal Rumble why? It's shit booking.

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Yep. Just the smallest spec of internal logic would help their presentation. But they don't tell stories any more. They book for "moments".

The other big issue is what happens post draft.

We have seen them flip the script and send people back and forth when rating plummet, meaning the whole "exclusivity" of a brand is moot.

Not to mention pulling the draft out not long before the "brand warfare" PPV that Survivor Series has become.

I'd love them to go back to making the "Big 4" mean just that again.

Winner of the Rumbles get the title matches at Mania.

Winner of the Mania Battle Royals get title matches at Summer Slam.

Crown the King at Queen of the Ring at Summer Slam for title matches at Survivor Series.

Go old school for Survivor Series - 5 on 5 matches for men at women. Raw v Raw. SDL vs SDL.

Survivors on the winning teams face off. Overall winning team locks in spots in the final 5 of their respective Rumble.

Now the teams matter. You want to be on a winning team to help get that edge in the Rumble buuuuuut, if a strong partner happens to get eliminated along the way it's not so bad is it?

If they want the draft around this time every year then the internal logic could be that everyone's contract with their "brand" is up at SummerSlam.

We then have a month of "anarchy" with people showing up everywhere while each brands powerbrokers work out their draft planning.

The anarchy culminates at Extreme Rules and the next night on RAW you start the draft. Everyone up for grabs. Top picks galore.

The following year you start the draft on SDL to keep the other network happy.

But they'll never fix it because they've never made more money than right now. That positive reinforcement will keep them on this path forever.

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11 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

The WWE brand extension fundamentally doesn't work and never has. The reason it doesn't work is because WWE can not truly allow SmackDown and Raw to compete with one another. Already they are having to manage expectations between their broadcast partners and not upsetting them that one gets cooler toys over the other. 

It's not a real competition. It's a facade of competition because of the Monday Night Wars. Having separate rosters makes no sense. When they get scared about ratings, they send stars from one show to another. Or they drop the brand rules entirely when it's convenient. 

Becky Lynch was allowed to switch to SmackDown because...why? Wrestlers can just declare themselves for the Royal Rumble why? It's shit booking.

also, Raw and Smackdown have always basically looked the same and acted the same, and ultimately are booked the same.  They are not alternatives to each other in any significant way.  They're an arbitrary border drawn in the sand down the middle of one country's map.

the brand split could only ever have worked if WCW had "won" the Invasion, claimed one of the shows as its own half, and been operated separately under a veneer of independence ever since.  Similar to NXT's former incarnation as the faux indie.  Under the WWE umbrella, but stylistically different from the top down so much that one could allow themself to forget.

As it is, we've gotten the same show twice, one with red paint on it and one with blue paint on it, for 20 years.  And no one has ever been fooled.

 

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22 hours ago, Craig H said:

Breaking up New Day, again, is so fucking stupid. 

Meltzer thinks Vince wants wants Big E on a separate show from Kofi and Xavier so fans take him more seriously as a singles wrestler.  Basically, Dave thinks Vince thinks New Day will "drag him down" (meaning Big E).  Dave doesn't agree.  He thinks Big E can elevate Kofi & Xavier.

I don't necessarily think you need to split them up to get Big E over as a singles wrestler, but i don't think it's a bad idea either.  It's possible fans will just chant "New Day' at Big E if they're on the same show or that the writers will run out of ideas if Big E's push struggles and lazily throw him back in six-mans with Kofi/Xavier.  If they're committed to a Big E singles run, I think it's worth finding out what they've got in him without New Day constantly in the background.

Dave thinks Becky and Seth will go to Raw since Charlotte changed brands.  He's speculating Seth will be one of Big E's first feuds.

 

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Charlotte's the RAW Women's Champion and Becky Lynch the Smackdown Women's Champion. I wouldn't be surprised if both swap belts like the New Day/Streets Profits switched the tag team belts to add another reign on Charlotte's tally. Ugh.

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