WWE Draft Lottery
The
WWE Draft Lottery (also known as the
WWE Draft) is an annual event held by
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), in which a few members of its' brands,
RAW,
SmackDown! and
ECW, are moved to another brand. Note that not all roster switches occur as the result of a draft, and some are given little or no on-air explanation.
March 2002 (Brand Extension)
In early 2002, the World Wrestling Federation announced they would be executing what they called a
brand extension. The entire WWF roster would be split into two separate brands, each with their own exclusive show and champions:
RAW and
SmackDown! This was their "Plan B" in response to the failed "
Invasion"
storyline, which, would it have been successful, would have seen a revived
World Championship Wrestling (and perhaps
Extreme Championship Wrestling)
promotion operating under the auspices of the WWF. Proponents of the brand extension claimed that this would allow mid-card talents more opportunity to move up the
card, while critics claim that the roster split would lock most wrestlers to one show, which may be the one they do not watch regularly.
This would begin with a "draft" to be held live on the
March 25,
2002 edition of
RAW in
State College, Pennsylvania. It was set up like a normal
sports draft, in that each brand would take turns selecting one wrestler from the WWF roster at a time (with exceptions made for tag teams and multiple-member factions). The
RAW brand was represented by on-screen "owner"
Ric Flair while
SmackDown! was represented by real life owner,
Mr. McMahon. It was decided that the
WWF Undisputed Champion and the
WWF Women's Champion would be eligible for competition on both brands, and should either title holder lose their title, they would become a talent exclusive to the show that they lost the belt.
Mr. McMahon won a coin toss to determine who would choose first. The WWF Undisputed Champion (at the time,
Triple H) and the WWF Women's Champion (at the time,
Jazz) are eligible for competition on
RAW and
SmackDown! Chris Jericho and
Stephanie McMahon were ineligible for the draft due to their match that night with Triple H for the WWF Undisputed Championship.
Steve Austin was ineligible due to a "contract stipulation" which allowed him to choose which brand he wished to compete on himself. The nWo were traded as a group. Billy & Chuck were traded as a group (due to their status as
WWF Tag Team Champions).
The initial 20 picks (10 for each brand) were announced throughout the live
RAW broadcast. The others were chosen via lottery and announced on WWF.com following the broadcast.
When Triple H lost the Undisputed Title to Hollywood Hogan, he became a
SmackDown! exclusive wrestler. When Jazz lost the Women's Championship to Trish Stratus, she became a
RAW exclusive wrestler.
June - October 2002
In time, the storyline involving McMahon owning
SmackDown! and Flair owning
RAW was dropped after an impromptu match between the two on
RAW in June 2002, where the winner would be the sole owner of the entire WWE. McMahon won the match with help from
Brock Lesnar. He then assigned
general managers to each brand. In a move that surprised many fans,
Eric Bischoff was named
RAW's general manager, while
Stephanie McMahon, the force behind ECW in the "Invasion" storyline, was made
SmackDown!'s GM.
McMahon then declared all contracts open for a short period of time. Brock Lesnar, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero and The Undertaker switched to
SmackDown!, while Stacy Keibler, The Hurricane, Randy Orton, Christian, Lance Storm, Test, Chris Jericho, and Triple H switched to
RAW.
Later still, The Big Show was traded to
SmackDown! in a storyline dispute with
Eric Bischoff. His trade was used to explain the sudden appearance of brand new
RAW talent in need of a fresh start and was later sold to wrestling fans as a 5-for-1 trade in which Big Show had been traded to SmackDown! in exchange for
D'Von Dudley,
Al Snow,
Maven,
Ivory, and
Val Venis.
Other wrestlers such as
Rodney Mack,
Linda Miles and
Bradshaw have switched rosters with little or no explanation. (
Johnny Nitro was fired from
SmackDown! before he went to
RAW). Presumably, injured wrestlers are able to return to the show of their choice, as this has happened numerous times.
The special privileges of the WWE Undisputed Championship and the Women's Championship were also lost with the decision to make Undisputed Champion
Brock Lesnar exclusive to
SmackDown! and the declaration that the Women's Championship would be exclusive to
RAW. Since
RAW did not have their own world champion during the time, Bischoff declared Triple H (the number one contender to Lesnar's title) the first
World Heavyweight Champion, a championship title represented by the
WCW World Heavyweight Championship belt and with disputed lineage thereto.
March 2004 (Draft Lottery)
In 2004, two years after the brand extension (and one day after
WrestleMania XX), McMahon made the announcement that a second draft was to occur the next week on the
March 22,
2004 edition of
RAW in
Detroit (which he claimed was a natural complement to "It all begins again," the catchphrase of
WrestleMania XX). This was the first formal draft where each show could take talent from the other show and would be susbstantially different from the one two years prior. This would be a draft via lottery, where the two general managers from each brand would randomly select six Superstars from the other roster (although, as part of the storyline, the randomness of the lottery is disputed). Anybody from either roster, including champions,
divas, announcers, and even general managers, would be eligible for the draft. After the draft, there would be a midnight deadline set to allow the general managers to make any additional trades. After the draft was over, many fans expressed disappointment that there weren't more high ranking wreslters traded.
Paul Heyman immediately quit after being drafted to
RAW. The deadline for additional trades was extended to 9 p.m. the next day (due to
SmackDown!'s lack of a general manager).
Kurt Angle was soon announced as
SmackDown!'s new general manager. Additional trades were made after the draft:
June 2005 (Draft Lottery)
Another draft lottery was announced in
2005. Unlike the previous year, the draft would instead take place over editions of
RAW and
SmackDown! from
June 6 to
June 30 instead of one night.
On the last two days of the draft, each brand was allowed to draw two names. John Cena's being drafted resulted in the
WWE Championship, formerly a SmackDown!
title, becoming exclusive to RAW
, gave RAW
both of WWE's top titles (the other being the World Heavyweight Championship). Batista being drafted resulted in the World Heavyweight Championship becoming SmackDown! exclusive. Muhammad Hassan and his manager Daivari were traded as a unit, giving SmackDown!
six picks in reality.
The following people were traded at midnight on July 1 (agreed upon by general managers, not lottery):However, Mark Jindrak, Kenzo and Hiroko Suzuki were all released a week later, never having debuted on RAW
. Jindrak, however, would get tryout matches with the WWE the following year.
Due to negative publicity, UPN ordered WWE to keep the controversial Muhammad Hassan character off of their network. As a result, WWE dropped the Muhammad Hassan and Daivari characters and Hassan (Mark Copani) and Daivari were removed from the SmackDown!
roster. Copani was sent back to WWE's Ohio Valley Wrestling only to be released a month later. Daivari was sent to WWE's Deep South for a few months before reappearing on RAW
and SmackDown!'' afterwards as the manager of
Kurt Angle.
It should also be noted that
Christian left the WWE in November 2005, refusing a contract renewal with the WWE and has since signed a contract to work for
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.
August 2005 - May 2006
On
August 22,
2005 Candice Michelle and
Torrie Wilson were traded to
RAW and
Christy Hemme and
Stacy Keibler were traded to
SmackDown! with no explanation whatsoever for the move other than the fact that Candice Michelle was "too hot for network TV". Christy Hemme was released shortly thereafter. Stacy made only a few appearances on
SmackDown! before she started to appear on the reality show
Dancing with the Stars. After her appearances on
Dancing with the Stars, Stacy stated in interviews that she was interested in pursuing other options outside of WWE and would let her contract expire in June. However, her superstar profile was moved back over to RAW when
Gregory Helms captured the
WWE Cruiserweight Championship (see below.)
Two
RAW superstars in
January 2006 challenged for
SmackDown! championships and won them.
Kurt Angle won the
World Heavyweight Championship on
Friday Night SmackDown! on
January 10,
2006, he later announced on
RAW on
January 16, 2006 that his contract with
RAW had expired on January 1 and has since signed on to work for
SmackDown!, thus ending his agreement to work exclusively for RAW. Daivari, as stated above, followed Angle to
SmackDown!. At the
Royal Rumble 2006,
Gregory Helms, who was on
RAW won the
WWE Cruiserweight Championship, thus switching to
SmackDown!.
Melina and
Johnny Nitro were "fired" from
SmackDown! and both debuted on the
May 29,
2006 episode of
RAW, with Nitro losing a non title match against
John Cena.
May - June 2006 (Reintroduction of ECW brand)
With the re-introduction of the
Extreme Championship Wrestling brand, ECW promoter
Paul Heyman was given two draft picks to bring to his new ECW brand, one from
RAW and one from
SmackDown!. He announced his picks on the
May 29,
2006 edition of
RAWPaul Heyman has also announced that an open season will now commence. The open season, similar to the one in 2002, consists of
RAW and
SmackDown! superstars having the chance to jump over to the ECW brand. In this context, the 2006 Draft Lottery could be the first one to feature a three-way draft, allowing the change of superstars between the three brands.
On the
June 2,
2006 edition of
SmackDown!,
Ashley Massaro moved from
RAW to
SmackDown!During the
WWE vs. ECW Head to Head special, a few roster switches were revealed.
Randy Orton announced that his one year contract with
SmackDown! had expired while he was sidelined with an (
kayfabe) injury, and he was now officially a member of the
RAW brand. During the
battle royal,
Big Show ripped off his
RAW t-shirt, to reveal he has now joined ECW. Former ECW stars
Nunzio and
Steven Richards also revealed their jump to the ECW brand during the show.
The Big Show is now currently the ECW World Heavyweight Champion.
*
Shawn Michaels is the only person to have wrestled on the same brand (RAW) since the 1990's, although he has appeared on SmackDown! in a non-wrestling role.
*
Ric Flair,
Kane,
Rey Mysterio,
Scotty 2 Hotty,
Funaki, and
Hardcore Holly are the only active superstars in WWE to have been with their brands since the beginning without changing rosters or being released.
*
Tazz had been with
SmackDown! since the brand extension had started, however he became a commentator in 2002 for that show. On the
June 9,
2006 edition of SmackDown!, he jumped to the ECW brand.
*
Lita has been with
RAW since the brand extension but now she competes on
RAW rarely as an active wrestler.
*
Lita and
Nidia are the only women in WWE history to be "Drafted" on WWE television all others were announced via the wwe website
*
Chris Benoit has changed brands the most by switching rosters five times, followed by
Matt Hardy at four, though some of these (including all of Hardy's roster switches) did not occur in the formal draft lotteries.
*The 2006 ECW draft makes
Kurt Angle the first wrestler to have wrestled on all three brands in the span of one draft year.
*
Rob Van Dam is the only wrestler to have been traded in every official draft or draft lottery. During the March 2002 Brand Extension draft, he was drafted to Ric Flair's RAW; during the March 2004 Draft Lottery, he was drafted to Paul Heyman's SmackDown!; during the June 2005 Draft Lottery, he was drafted to RAW; and during the 2006 ECW Draft, he was drafted to ECW.
