2008 WWE Draft Recap & Analysis

The entire landscape of the WWE has been altered. On Monday night, the WWE held their annual draft. The format for the draft was that a brand would get a pick when one of their wrestlers won an interpromotional battle. A wrestler was then picked via a computerized graphic.

Rey Mysterio - From SmackDown to Raw
Rey has been a part of SmackDown since he made his WWE debut in 2002. He has been out of action since February with an arm injury. This is a great move for the fans because there are so many main event level matches that can be made. Rey has yet to have a feud with John Cena, Triple H, or Shawn Michaels. However, this is a major blow to SmackDown. Rey is arguably the most exciting high-flyer on the roster and is the biggest merchandise mover on the roster.

Jeff Hardy - From RAW to SmackDown
This is the move that SmackDown needed to counteract the loss of Rey. Jeff has replaced Rey as the high-flyer for the brand. For Jeff, this might be a great thing. He is on two strikes with the Wellness Policy and hopefully touring with his brother will keep him on the straight and narrow and might alleviate some of the hurt he must be going through when his house burned down. Jeff can become both a main eventer on the brand or he can reform his legendary tag team with his brother. Either way, the action looks to be picking up on the show. This move is another win for the fans.

CM Punk - From ECW to RAW
CM Punk seems to have wrestled on all three brands interchangeably over the past few months. With the Money in the Bank title shot in his possession, he can still challenge for any title in the WWE regardless of the brand that title is on. This provides an out for CM Punk in case things don't go well for him on RAW. I think that this move is a slight negative for the fans because without CM Punk, there is one less reason to watch wrestling on Tuesday nights.

Matt Hardy - From SmackDown to ECW
You can forget about half of the things I wrote about in the Jeff Hardy paragraph. The Hardy reunion was very short-lived. While SmackDown and ECW share talent on TV, the brothers will not be touring together on live events because starting in August, ECW will be touring with the RAW brand for house shows. The interesting thing is that Matt is the current U.S. Champion and that belt belongs to SmackDown. It will be interesting to see what happens to the title because Matt is defending the title against Chavo Guerrero on Sunday night and Chavo is also an ECW wrestler. To make this nonsense even more confusing, the Miz & John Morrison are both ECW wrestlers but they hold that tag team titles that belong to SmackDown. So much for this draft clearing up any of the confusion between ECW and SmackDown.

Jim Ross - From RAW to SmackDown
Michael Cole - From SmackDown to RAW
These two picks happened within a minute of each other as the two men swapped places as the lead announcer of the two main brands. I think that Jim Ross moving to SmackDown will make Mick Foley a better color analyst as he is just learning this new job. This is the fourth SmackDown announce team in just a few months. Hopefully this move will provide some stability at that announce table.
Lawler and Cole worked together many years ago on SmackDown and I thought that they worked pretty well together. It will be strange to hear SmackDown without Cole or RAW without JR but this might turn out to be a good thing in the long-run.

Batista - From SmackDown to RAW
Batista will be fighting Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship on Sunday night. Will he be making his first RAW appearance next week with the main title from SmackDown? Three years ago, he took that title with him when he was drafted from RAW to SmackDown. The loss of Batista is huge for SmackDown but as I suggested the other day, this might be a great move for Batista.

Umaga - From RAW to SmackDown
This a great move for the career of the Samoan Bulldozer. He will be joining a roster filled with evil super-heavyweights like Mark Henry and the Great Khali. Future and fresh matches against wrestlers like the Undertaker and the Big Show are sure to be on the horizon for him. However, this move doesn't make up for the loss of Batista for the brand.

Kane - From ECW to RAW
The ECW Champion is now a part of RAW. ECW has lost their two most popular and only main event caliber wrestlers to RAW tonight. The earlier addition of Matt Hardy to the brand does not make up for these losses. I'm dreading to see what the main events of the show will be in the next few weeks. The only saving grace for wrestling on Tuesday night's is that the SmackDown/ECW talent exchange will still be going on.

Mr. Kennedy - From RAW to SmackDown
This is a great move for Mr. Kennedy for the reasons I stated the other day. The big move of the night was announced seconds after Mr. Kennedy was drafted.

Triple H - From RAW to SmackDown
Triple H is the current WWE Champion. That is the big title for the RAW brand. That title was originally a SmackDown title but was moved to RAW when John Cena was drafted to the brand three years ago. Triple H has been with RAW since the brand split happened. He was drafted to SmackDown a few years ago but was traded back to RAW before he ever missed an episode of the show. The big difference between then and now is that there is no current General Manager for the RAW brand that will be making any trades.

Overall Thoughts
The winners of tonight's draft were the fans. With the movement of these big name wrestlers, a whole batch of fresh main event caliber matches has been created. One of the biggest qualms I've had with the WWE recently has been the endless repeating of certain main event matches.

The big loser tonight was ECW. Even the announcers were making light of how badly the brand was fleeced during tonight's show.

_{Photo of Triple H: © 2008 World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.}