7 big mistakes WWE made on SmackDown's Draft: Disappointing end to top rivalry, Reason why RAW could suffer (11th October, 2019)

WWE's Draft is halfway done. We saw the conclusion of Day 1 and thanks to a great main event and a great finish, the overall impression of the show was a good one. It was undoubtedly better than last week, where the show was overstacked to get everybody on the card in two hours.

Thankfully, that didn't happen and the show went smooth. But how were there 7 mistakes in two hours? We'll get into that shortly.

WWE had let a bunch of mistakes slip through the cracks, particularly with certain draft picks. While we understand that they couldn't keep everyone happy, particularly given that they have two different Networks to answer to,

However, there were a bunch of questionable decisions made. This usually happens in Drafts and has been happening for a long time now, it's just that we often forget the past drafts due to nostalgia. Here are the mistakes WWE made on SmackDown for Day 1 of the Draft

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#7 Kofi Kingston jumping around like everything is fine

Character consistency - RIP

Look at Kofi Kingston and Bayley on SmackDown to notice the stark contrast in character work. It was just a week ago when Kofi Kingston's run as WWE Champion ended in 10 seconds.

When you lose like that in ten seconds, why would you walk out bubbly, happy and throwing pancakes as though nothing happened? With Bayley, everything that has happened had a purpose and has all built into the character that she's developed lately. Kingston has been brushed aside from the WWE title picture and has now been relegated to doing the Susan G. Komen segments.

It's as though he has completely forgotten about the fact that he lost the World Championship in ten seconds.

#6 Picking Lacey Evans before Kevin Owens

A good pick, but too high up

Let's just preface this point by saying that we have nothing against Lacey Evans. We think she's a great talent who has a lot of potential and will eventually be a multi-time Women's champion in a matter of a year or two.

She was a 3rd round pick, being 12th overall and #5 for SmackDown. That's quite a high position to be in, but was it really necessary to pick her over Kevin Owens? Alexa Bliss probably should have been behind Evans while Owens should have been the first pick of Round 3.

It's a small matter, but one that puts into question the decision making behind the Draft. With all due respect to Evans, Kevin Owens is a World-Class talent who has had an extensive career with a lot of experience. Not only is he among the Top 5 overall performers in WWE, but he's one of the best wrestlers in the world.

This feels like a small slap on the wrist, but we are interested in the idea of Owens on RAW again. He did benefit more from being on RAW last draft anyway.

#5 Signs of overstacking one roster

Did they suffer more?

When we said that RAW could suffer, here is why. Firstly, the Executives of USA Network and FOX had direct control over the Draft and had a say as to which superstar goes where. The different feel of it was given with the "WAR Room" featuring the executives, giving it a very legitimate sports-like feel.

From the look of things, it seems as though FOX has won this for now. While there's still an entire episode to change it around, WWE is likely going to overstack one roster and that will be SmackDown.

It makes sense financially because FOX is paying way more, but we should remember that we now have a roster on SmackDown that already features Roman Reigns, Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman, Sasha Banks and The Revival. In all likeliness, Brock Lesnar will be on SmackDown since Rollins is still the Universal Champion and it wouldn't make sense to have Rollins and Reigns on the same brand anymore.

The overstacking of one roster may be detrimental to SmackDown and RAW, more so the latter.

#4 Shorty Gable

Shorty G?

A couple of months ago, PWInsider had reported that WWE trademarked "Shorty G" for Chad Gable. There was a lot of reluctance about it and that hasn't changed one bit. WWE has officially changed the name of Chad Gable to Shorty Gable.

We don't really need to go in-depth to explain why it's a big mistake, but we should atleast acknowledge the fact that it hampers the potential of a great prospective talent like Chad Gable. Gable was always overlooked on the main roster, even when he debuted with American Alpha.

After they were abruptly split up, it was Jason Jordan who was getting the big push to be a future star while Gable was either floating around in a tag team or simply forgotten about. It's such an immature storyline and we wonder how Gable feels about having his name changed to "Shorty".

Even if it's a storyline where Gable is "embracing" his height, it still makes no sense. The storyline is that Baron Corbin is a high school bully. Really?

#3 Wasting a spot by drafting a Tag Team separately

They're still a tag team...

One of the primary rules stated in the WWE Draft is that "Tag Teams can be drafted as one unless Network executives choose otherwise". When Alexa Bliss was drafted to RAW in the 3rd Roud separately, the assumption was that she was being split from Nikki Cross following their Tag Team title loss.

It didn't make sense since they weren't finished with their storyline with The Kabuki Warriors - the Japanese duo who recently dethroned Cross & Bliss. However, one round later, Nikki Cross was drafted to WWE RAW as well.

If WWE was going to Draft the two to the same brand, what was the point of doing it separately rather than using one spot to send them together as a tag team? It was a waste of a spot because there were quite a few superstars that were forgotten about.

It was an unnecessary use of a spot, but then again, the whole 4th round seemed a bit sketchy with the average picks. Perhaps it was by design and if so, it was a bad one.

#2 Forgotten superstars

Cesaro...forgotten again

Here are some of the superstars who were forgotten about or simply went undrafted on SmackDown:

Cesaro

Chad Gable

EC3

Drew Gulak

But, sure, Lucha House Party was a great pick. As we mentioned, they wasted an entire spot with Nikki Cross when they could have just drafted her along with Bliss.

We don't understand why Cesaro went undrafted. EC3 should come as no surprise since WWE doesn't view him highly. Moreover, The Usos aren't even a part of the Preliminary pool. They could be added at the last minute, but one would think that they would have their brands assigned on Day 1(ish) since they happen to be one of the top tag teams of the world!

Hopefully, WWE does justice to these superstars. It seemed as though Round 4 was assigned to mid-card to low-level superstars (minus The Viking Raiders) and hopefully, being undrafted doesn't mean being forgotten about creatively.

Sheamus was a name that was unsurprisingly missing. However, we still don't know if he's actually injured or is on a creative hiatus right now. Batista claimed that he wasn't injured.

#1 Underwhelming end to a great rivalry

We deserved better

When The Fiend Bray Wyatt attacked Seth Rollins after Clash of Champions 2019, the feud was instantly considered to be the most exciting Universal Championship feud since the title was introduced in 2016.

As the weeks passed by and the match approached, it was widely regarded to be the most highly-anticipated Universal Championship match ever, more so than any of the Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns matches in the past.

All of that went crashing down at Hell in a Cell 2019 when it was essentially revealed that the entire feud was pointless. WWE didn't want to take the title off Rollins yet they wanted to protect The Fiend - so why would they book the match in the first place?

This was only reaffirmed on Day 1 of the Draft as The Fiend interfered during the opening match that determined which brand got the #1 pick. He appeared from underneath the ring and temporarily took Rollins underneath before the Universal Champion escaped. Roman Reigns was nowhere to be seen and Rollins nearly passed out.

With Wyatt going to SmackDown and Rollins likely staying on WWE RAW, that was the end of the rivalry. Wyatt didn't get the title, but he did choke him out. That was underwhelming and safe to say - a big mistake.