IIIIIIIIIIII-IIIIIIIIIIII CHOOOOOOOOSE YOU BABY
Waddup wrestling fans, what’s crackin? The Great Brown Hope hopes yall have been having a good week. New month, new me amirite? Wait, that’s not how it goes. Anyway, I’m not gonna hold you up at the door much longer, come on in.
We are fresh off the WWE Draft. And lemme tell ya, this Draft nonsense just never does it for me. And im sure many fans alike or different would agree. It’s not a terrible concept. At times it has been well presented as a show that matters like an episode of the Slammys.
Let’s take this past draft for example. There were alot of picks made and multiple rounds over the span of a few days. And alot of those picks were used to keep certain stars on the brand. I get that, but it’s unnecessary. The first Draft was done to make the brand split official in a sense. Every other Draft since has had a different variation of rules and such. If you’re gonna make the draft a yearly thing, make it consistent. This last format could work if they keep it the same for years to follow.
But why are we here? I was getting to that.
There’s numerous ways to fix the draft. And The Great Brown Hope sat down and came up with FIVE.
LET’S GET TO IT YALL!!
BROWN'S FIVE AT 5
VOLUME 2 / ISSUE 3
FIVE WAYS TO FIX THE WWE DRAFT
5. PERFORMANCE CENTER DRAFT POOL
WWE has truly set the tone for creating it’s own stars. The NIL program has taken college athletes that can one day prosper in the squared circle. And the NIL stars aren’t just anybody. They aren’t just your regular every day people. These are athletes that have been groomed to follow certain conditioning and training regiments that make them the prime athletes that they are. That has always been the key to their success whilst also pairing them up with trainers and wrestlers that were or are the best of the best available to show em the ropes and how to run em. Make the Draft exclusively from talent that has yet to have any type of televised match and you introduce them to the masses with taped promos of their combines and performance center training. RAW, SmackDown, and NXT would all be making picks, guaranteeing new superstars in the making on every brand.
4. NXT SUPERSTARS DRAFT POOL
This would be similar to the Performance Center idea, but here RAW and Smackdown only make picks from NXT and NXT only. If they wanna shake things up, allow the brands to make some sort of trade to either move up the draft ladder or trade one of their picks for another prospect or talent on their respective rosters. Drafts have always been about moving on to the next level from a collegiate sports career. And based on this last draft, NXT call ups are still considered a thing storyline wise. So if they’re going to treat NXT as the developmental territory, the Draft should only feature picks from stars in said territory. This type of draft would have been awesome in the NXT and NXT UK era that featured multiple stars that ended up either getting their call ups or moving on somewhere else. They are flirting with trying to incorporate as much realism as possible. If they’re gonna play it that way they’re gonna have to play it right.
3. SURPRISE RETURNS
The Draft doesnt have to take up an entire hour or two of each episode of RAW or Smackdown. The Draft can be made into a short Wednesday night presentation or a WWE Network/Peacock exclusive Just a couple of picks every year to bring back stars that have been injured or away from the ring for a while. A nice way to bring back stars that have been missed or forgotten. An easy way to reignite a feud between a returning star and the person who injured them. Three or four returning superstars in a mini draft special would make a nice 30 minutes of television with them cutting promos and some highlights being shown. The interweb people get to talking, the wrestling youtubers all start their fantasy angles, and the twitter gets lit on fire with predictions and hashtags.
2. SURPRISE SIGNINGS
In an era where everything and anything can and WILL be spoiled, how about taking a big ass steel wrench and giving that lid an extra turn to secure nothing leaks.
The internet is notorious for dropping the news on 99.99% of signings in wrestling. An easy way to put a stop to that is to have these new surprise signings sign their name on the dotted line live on the air. The event is hyped with an unknown draft pool with the only known denominator is that every single draft pick being made will be a Superstar that is a free agent in any market. This could be anyone. Independent wrestlers, wrestlers formally contracted by other companies, even a popular Hollywood movie/music star that is leaving their profession to become a WWE Superstar. Hell, throw mixed martial arts talent into that pool too. Why the fack not? WWE sells the rights to air it to a big time network for one night only. This way the Fed has the upper hand and the element of surprise, two factors that are vital to a succesful WWE draft.
Just imagine.
Triple H comes out and announces the First pick of the WWE Draft…..and it’s Conor McGregor.
Pan the camera to Conor McGregor sitting up and taking his WWE RAW hat and making his way to the signing podium, but not without stopping on the way to have a staredown with whoever is the current WWE Undisputed Champion.
1.NXT INVOLVED WITH PICKS / THREE BRAND FREE FOR ALL
The Fed is gonna draft the way the Fed wants to draft. Either they dont get it or they just wanna do it their way cause that’s just the way she goes. Regardless of the fact, the best draft possible with today’s “draft rules” needs to involve NXT and there needs to be movement of talent for every pick. No one should pick someone to keep them on their brand. Get all three brands on the board, and let em choose as they would like to do so. That’ll really rattle some snake cages. And no safety net for the champs neither. Everyone is available. You turn Survivor Series into a three way competition like they did in 2019. Whichever brand gets the most wins, gets the first pick.
From there, snake format til every brand has made a certain number of picks. Maybe 5 or 6 picks per brand would be a nice way to shake things up. And everyone being available to be drafted brings in past elements like brand supremacy and brand favoritism slash exclusivity. A prime example would be when Triple H was drafted to SmackDown. The H that is Tripled really didnt wanna work Tuesday nights.
Im sure everyone remembers that. But you give each brand a chance to truly switch things up and provide new, fresh feuds, as well possibly reigniting old beefs or reuniting old partners. If NXT got the first pick, there would be no stopping them from drafting either World Champion from the Men’s or Women’s Divisions on RAW or SmackDown. Or maybe SmackDown drafts an NXT World Champion and now that Championship has to be defended on NXT and SmackDown. Or any other way you wanna remix or chop and screw it.
The Draft could really use a definitive tuneup and some consistency. But we’ll take what we can get, I aint tripping. The Draft still makes wrestling a little more fun at the end of the day.
Thanks for reading yall! Dont forget to wrap chains around your tires in the snow. And dont forget to brush your teeth. If you forgot where your toothbrush is, go buy a few at the 99cent store before they close down. And dont forget to follow The Great Brown Hope on twitter/X
—> @TGr8BrwnHope
Playlist
UGK ft. Outkast “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)”
Ray Cash ft. Scarface “Bumpin My Music”
L-Burna ft. Baby S “Make My Day”
Chamillionaire “In The Trunk”
Lloyd Banks ft. 50 Cent and Prodigy “Rotten Apple”
Tom Waits “$29.00”
Wallows ft. Clairo “Are You Bored Yet?”
Backstreet Boys “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”
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