WWE Draft Picks, Week 1

I only watch WWE's Raw and Smackdown occasionally, and almost never check out the peripheral shows, but still like to keep up with what's going on with the company. Right now, the thing that interests me most is the month-long draft, wherein 5 wrestlers from Monday Night Raw will move to Thursday's Smackdown, while 5 Smackdown superstars head over to Raw. Allegedly the choices are random, but, this being professional wrestling, I think we can safely say the results are pre-planned.

This week, one of the WWE's biggest draws, John Cena, heads over to Raw. I'm amazed. Being the WWE champion, I figured he would be immune, so as to keep the championship with Smackdown. As it stands, Raw now has BOTH "Best of" titles (As I refer to the WWE Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship) attached to it, while Smackdown has none. Does this mean current Heavyweight Champ, Batista (Or Triple H, if he wins back the title at Vengeance in a few weeks), will be heading to Raw to even things out? Surprising move. It'll be interesting to see how this works out.

Meanwhile, Smackdown gets Chris Benoit. I'm not exactly sure what to make of this. On the one hand, Benoit is a large draw for the company and it's always surprising (And risky) to see the bigger names being shuffled around. On the other hand, he isn't so huge that any change to his status quo might turn people away, so this doesn't shake things up too much. Still, Benoit's a great performer and will do well no matter which show he's on.

To round things off, I thought I would mention which trades I'm hoping to see in the coming weeks. I can't really think of that many wrestlers who would benefit by moving, but, personally, I'd like to see Ric Flair go to Smackdown. I've gotten tired of seeing him as The Game's stooge on Raw, and, unless Helmsley also moves, Smackdown would give him the opportunity to be on his own again. Aside from that, seeing a few more of the second-stringers shifted around could be good. If properly managed, this could really boost their careers. Remember how we all under-estimated Shelton Benjamin, but, when he was traded to Raw last year, he was given the opportunity to really show what he could do. He's a personal favorite now, but probably wouldn't be if he hadn't been in the draft. Maybe lightening will strike twice and another newer performer might surprise us, given this same chance.