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The WWE Draft, a concept that was created by the company in 2002 to split their (at the time) over-bloated roster into two separate shows between the RAW and SmackDown brands. At the time it made perfect sense; WWE had more than enough talent to split them between the Red and Blue brands. Not only did it allow their main eventers to be split up so they wouldn't be facing each other every single week, but it also allowed WWE to create new stars from the Ruthless Aggression era and beyond.
Over the years, the concept of the WWE Draft has changed shape on multiple occasions. One of the easiest versions to digest featured RAW vs. SmackDown matches on both shows, where the winning brand got a random draft pick generated on the TitanTron. While some people didn't find that concept ideal, it helped diffuse any argument due to logic about why said Superstar went where. It was all "random."
In the last two years, however, WWE went with a new format that wiped both brands' rosters clean and started from scratch. While this could be a good idea in theory it has been executed poorly two years in a row. There have been some fans that have called the latest WWE Draft the worst they've ever done, and that certainly covers a lot of ground.
Today we will break down the five biggest mistakes that WWE made with this year's Draft.
#5 Free Agents being "drafted" by WWE after the actual Draft concluded
The rules of the WWE Draft changes almost every year they have it, and that's totally okay. There is nothing wrong with changing with the times and making the proper adjustments to allow things to make more sense. Despite what WWE creative would like you to believe most times, logic is very important to fans when it comes to their pro wrestling.
So when the company presented the WWE Universe with the rules to the 2020 Draft before night one on Friday Night SmackDown everyone just assumed that WWE would follow their own rules that they laid out for themselves. But unfortunately, that wasn't the case as one of the most intriguing rules they made for themselves was completely tossed aside on Monday evening, hours before RAW went on the air. The rule in question reads as follows:
"Any undrafted Superstars will immediately be declared free agents and able to sign with the brand of their choosing."
This makes complete sense and has been done by WWE in years before great success. One needs to look no further than Heath Slater's free agent storyline in 2016 to realize how great of a story WWE can put together. While this typically wouldn't work for a main event star, someone like Heath could very much benefit from an arc like this.
So much to the surprise of wrestling fans everywhere, supposed free agents Shorty G and the Lucha House Party were both "drafted" by the WWE on social media on Monday night. How does this make any sense? Wouldn't it just have been easier to say they signed these talents to deals instead?
While, yes, it would have been anti-climactic it would have at least made sense and complied with the rules that WWE set for themselves days prior. And at the end of the day, pro wrestling fans just want the product that they're watching to make sense. When WWE can find that balance fans are more forgiving overall and willing to look the other way on other aspects of the show they aren't a fan of.
#4 WWE "swapping" the WWE's brands' tag team titles
The tag team division in WWE has seen better days across the board. There may be fewer tag teams across the brands in the company right now than at any time in the history of the industry. It's rather alarming to see how far the division has fallen over the last couple of years.
While it's common knowledge that Vince McMahon doesn't care for tag team wrestling, it doesn't excuse the fact that there is a large portion of the fanbase out there that absolutely loves it. Just because it isn't McMahon's cup of tea doesn't mean he should try to take it away from his paying customers.
With the 2020 Draft, WWE was presented with an out, something that would ease the strain on the tag team division within the company and create consistent new fresh matchups for the champions to take on by simply unifying the RAW and SmackDown Tag Team Championships and have them defended across both brands like they do with the women's tag team titles.
Instead, they did the most illogical thing possible. Not only did they have both tag team champions — then-RAW's The Street Profits and then-SmackDown's The New Day — swap brands, but they also had them exchange titles as well. These titles are prestigious. They are supposed to mean something, and there is a history to these championships that have been tracked for years now. Instead, WWE simply just swapped them because the color doesn't match the brand. This was a ridiculous decision.
#3 WWE choosing not to draft Andrade at all
What a difference a year makes. In the 2019 WWE Draft, Andrade was a first-round draft pick for Monday Night RAW and was a staple for the company appearing consistently across both brands throughout the calendar year.
Andrade even enjoyed a 151-day title reign as United States Champion before dropping the title to Apollo Crews in April of this year. Fast forward to the 2020 WWE Draft and the former titleholder wasn't drafted at all. Instead, people such as Titus O'Neil, Riddick Moss, and Arturo Ruas were drafted in the late rounds instead.
While it has been suggested that Andrade wasn't drafted due to him having elective surgery which will require some time off, this doesn't make any sense. Because Riddick Moss is currently sidelined with an injury himself at the moment, and his timetable to return to TV and presumably RAW Underground is currently unknown.
And as great of a human being that Titus O'Neil is, not counting his appearances on RAW Underground, he wrestled a total of two matches on Monday night RAW since he was once again drafted by the brand in the sixth round in 2019. If WWE didn't use him then surely they aren't going to use him now.
Andrade is a tremendous talent who deserved the benefit of the doubt to be drafted. Even if he wasn't going to be on TV for a while it would have shown faith in him by WWE to make sure he was placed on a roster before the completion of the Draft.
#2 WWE splitting up the The New Day
It's certainly a "New Day" in WWE right now, and not one that the members of the WWE Universe are happy about. WWE chose to split The New Day in the Draft, sending Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods over to Monday Night RAW while Big E remained on Friday Night SmackDown.
This is a head-scratcher for sure, and it harkens back to the point of the lack of logic in this Draft. Why would RAW and the USA Network not want all three members of The New Day? What does splitting up the group do for them? Furthermore, even if there was a good reason for splitting them, wouldn't it have been more beneficial to RAW to take all three members and then later trade Big E back to SmackDown for a talent they were unable to draft before SmackDown did? That at least make more sense in the grand scheme of things.
The rumored reasoning from the WWE camp of separating the group to allow Big E to shine as a singles competitor also doesn't make any sense. Kofi Kingston, as part of The New Day, enjoyed a six-month title reign as the WWE World Champion on SmackDown while still very much being part of The New Day as a group.
So why did WWE make this decision? No one knows as of yet, and shock value may be the reason. But for the sake of something like that, WWE broke up arguably one of the most popular groups in the history of the company. It wasn't worth it, and now the WWE Universe must impatiently await the day where they admit their mistake and reunite The New Day, perhaps sometime in 2021.
#1 WWE drafting RETRIBUTION, period
We close this piece with easily the biggest mistake WWE made in the 2020 Draft. This one was honestly a no brainer, yet the company did it anyway. They actually included the group known as RETRIBUTION, and were selected by the RAW brand.
This, of course, is the very group that has stated on countless occasions that they are there to destroy their employer. It was bad enough weeks back when WWE gave the group official RAW contracts — it didn't make any sense and still doesn't. But they had a chance to get RETRIBUTION back on track by not drafting them, and WWE did it anyway.
WWE could have used their very own Draft rules to their advantage this year. With RAW and SmackDown both putting their foot down and saying they wanted nothing to do with RETRIBUTION, it would have made this outlaw group free agents within the company like they should've remained to begin with.
Fans wouldn't know where and when they were going to show up and that would add to the intrigue and dangerous nature of this group. Instead, RAW not only gave them contracts weeks ago, they also drafted them weeks later. It's as if to say, "we want you to destroy our show and the company so you can put RAW out of business."
It's really not difficult to have things make sense in professional wrestling. While there were others, had WWE just managed to avoid these five mistakes during the 2020 Draft maybe people would have remembered this event more fondly. Instead, it will be remembered as the night where the company once again shot itself in the foot for no good reason, and you hate to see that.
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