What if John Cena and Batista hadn’t swapped brands in the 2005 WWE Draft?

WrestleMania 21 marked a seismic shift in the WWE landscape. John Cena defeated JBL for the WWE Championsihp. Batista pinned Triple H to take the World Heavyweight Championship. Add in Randy Orton giving The Undertaker a run for his money, and Edge capturing the first Money in the Bank briefcase, and it was a new guard of top tier talent were established.

In the summer to follow, WWE executed a major surprise in a draft that shuffled the brand rosters. Cena, the top star on SmackDown, headed to Monday nights. Batista, the new top guy on Raw, headed to the blue brand.

In retrospect, these changes made sense. Cena was not only younger, but the company man with the greater upside in terms of personality and charisma. Of course he went to the brand WWE was more concerned with, while Batista took a small step back, headlining the other show. But what if WWE hadn’t made this choice? This article takes a look at what might have been.

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#5 Batista is the man

Staying on Raw may have signaled Batista getting pushed as the top star in all of WWE

By 2005 standards, there’s little question that WWE prioritized Raw over SmackDown. John Cena’s move to the red brand was seen as mutually beneficial in pushing both the young star and the show. However, mere months earlier, WWE had chosen Batista’s triumph over Triple H to close WrestleMania 21. In doing so, they quite arguably made a bigger deal out of The Animal’s first world title win than Cena’s.

Had Batista stayed put on Raw, it would have offered a major signal that WWE meant to build around him as the man. In much the same way as the company went on to push Cena as the face of the company, Batista would have been at the fore.

In reality, Batista wound up injured in the months to follow, which certainly didn’t help his case in being the lead star for WWE. We’ll never know if he would have suffered the same fate as a Raw Superstar, but if he had stayed on the Raw brand and stayed healthy, he may well have garnered a very long run on top.

#4 The Undertaker moves to Raw

The Undertaker was a SmackDown fixture, but might he have gone to Raw to feud with Batista?

The Undertaker would, over time, become synonymous with the SmackDown brand. In the latter stages of his full time career, The Deadman took up residence there, often as not in the brand’s World Heavyweight Championship picture.

But what if the World Heavyweight Championship had stayed on Raw?

There’s no guarantee The Phenom would have followed that particular title, but a good chunk of his 2006 and 2007 were dedicated to feuding with Batista. The program better established The Animal, while also providing the newer star a mentor big man to work with and learn from.

It seems quite feasible WWE would have stuck with its plan of binding The Undertaker to Batista even if the latter had stayed on Raw. Thus, if Batista and John Cena hadn’t swapped brands, The Dead Man may well have jumped to Monday nights.

#3 John Cena vs. The Great Khali happens earlier

John Cena and The Great Khali may have been on a collision course on SmackDown

Had John Cena stayed put on SmackDown, his slate of challengers may well have looked different. He may have had another world title defense or two against JBL. Maybe WWE would have moved one or more of his other eventual challengers to the blue brand to still pose obstacles for Cena to overcome.

One SmackDown talent whom Cena probably would have crossed paths with sooner on SmackDown, though, would have been The Great Khali.

Cena and Khali did ultimately feud in 2007. Khali had largely done all he could on SmackDown by that point, and WWE got one more main event run out of him over on Raw, opposite The Champ.

However, in this altered timeline, it seems quite feasible that Khali would have crossed paths with Cena much sooner on the blue brand, likely as not with the WWE Championship on the line.

#2 Kurt Angle vs. Batista

Kurt Angle was positioned to enter the title picture, whoever the champ was on Raw

Kurt Angle was an important rival for John Cena in the fall of 2006. Angle’s remarkable in ring talent, not to mention his established main event level credibility offered the young champion a stiff challenger, not to mention a ring general to pull the very best out of him from bell to bell.

There’s little question that Angle would have been in one world title picture or another coming out of SummerSlam 2006. The simplest line of logic to follow is that, if Batista had still been the champ on Raw, he would have had the Olympic gold medalist knocking on his door.

Angle and Batista never had a proper one-on-one rivalry, and so the pairing stands out as a narrowly missed dream match that was within WWE’s grasp.

As it stands, Batista moved to SmackDown and then got hurt, in a development that prompted Angle’s own move to the blue brand. Angle would ultimately leave the company before he and The Animal would clash.

#1 The Great Khali might not have won a world title

For as imposing he was, WWE may not have turned to The Great Khali as world champion were it not for injuries at the top of the SmackDown roster

One of the Hallmarks of John Cena’s original main event push was how injury proof he seemed. Fellow emerging top stars of the era like Batista and Randy Orton each had stretches in which they had to miss significant time, and Triple H suffered more than one injury that cost him months of action.

Cena, however, didn’t miss any significant time from when he won the WWE Championship in spring 2005 all the way to fall 2007.

It’s unclear that WWE ever meant to crown The Great Khali a world champion. His size and aura made him a legitimate choice, but his in ring skill and talking made him a hard pick to justify in that most featured spot. That he got a two-month reign on top in 2007 was largely symptomatic of injury issues. Between 2005 and 2007, major injuries to Batista and Edge each led to major shifts in creative plans for the World Heavyweight Championship.

We can never know for sure if Cena would have stayed healthy if he had stayed on SmackDown. In reality, though, Cena demonstrated an ability to avoid getting sidelined, not to mention an alarmingly fast recovery time from what injuries he has sustained. It’s quite possible that if Cena had been on the blue brand from 2005 to 2007, the title wouldn’t have gone vacant or necessitated backup plan champs.

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