After
Vince McMahon bought out all the competition, the
World Wrestling Federation was left with way too many people on its roster.
In an effort to help promote some of the younger stars, a "draft" was fabricated. Mr. McMahon gets exclusive control of WWF SmackDown!, while Ric Flair gets control of WWF Raw. The whole thing is a work, obviously.
Top draft picks for each of the two teams (the first ten were featured on Raw, the latter picks were part of a "lottery" held on wwf.com):
Ric Flair/Raw:
- The Undertaker
- The nWo (Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and X-Pac)
- Kane
- Rob Van Dam
- Booker T
- Big Show
- Bubba Ray Dudley
- Brock Lesnar
- William Regal
- Lita
- Bradshaw
- Steven Richards
- Matt Hardy
- Raven
- Jeff Hardy
- Mr. Perfect
- Spike Dudley
- D'Lo Brown
- Shawn Stasiak
- Terri
- Jacqueline
- Goldust
- Trish Stratus
- Justin Credible
- Big Boss Man
- Tommy Dreamer
- Crash Holly
- Mighty Molly
- (no pick, already reached 30)
- (as above)
Vince McMahon/SmackDown!:
- The Rock
- Kurt Angle
- Chris Benoit
- Hollywood Hulk Hogan
- Billy & Chuck
- Edge
- Rikishi
- D-Von Dudley
- Mark Henry
- Maven
- Billy Kidman
- Tajiri
- Chris Jericho
- Ivory
- Albert
- The Hurricane
- Al Snow
- Lance Storm
- Diamond Dallas Page
- Torrie Wilson
- Scotty 2 Hotty
- Stacy Keibler
- Christian
- Test
- Faarooq
- Tazz
- Hardcore Holly
- The Big Valboski (Val Venis)
- Perry Saturn
- (no pick)
Looking over the worked draft list reveals just a few of the many inconsistencies in the bizarro-world of professional wrestling...
While some units (the nWo) were drafted as a group, and some tag teams were kept intact (Billy & Chuck were drafted as a unit), other, more popular and respected teams were broken up (the Dudley Boyz and A.P.A. being the best possible example). Oh, and some champions, but not all, will flit about from one show to the other freely. And not everyone can get both TNN and UPN, so some fans will be unable to watch their favorite performers. And in general the whole thing is a clusterfuck.
Update: Having had a few days to reflect upon how the brand division went, I'm no longer entirely convinced it's all bad. SmackDown! (which airs on the marginally more-available UPN) has many of the more family-friendly characters (and yes, relatively speaking, The Rock is family-friendly, at least as compared to some of the antics of BikerTaker and the nWo). Raw has a good portion of the veterans, and most of the "harder" characters. They just might actually be able to make this whole "two brands, different but equal" thing work...