There have been rumors going around that the WWE is planning on doing another draft post- Wrestlemania. The WWE draft was a staple during the first brand split that happened in the early 2000’s. I wrote something recently on how I feel this would be a bad idea, and the supposed plans for the 2017 WWE Draft is OK for what is being presented.
[Jon]
Apparently, the plan is to give both brands a set amount of picks where they can pick wrestlers from the other brand or from NXT. The only catch is that the champions are off limit. As of this writing, it is not known as to how many picks each brand will get or how many NXT superstars will be up for grabs. I still feel that this idea is foolish and will not do well for either brands. For instance, take someone like a Luke Harper, who isn’t a champion but has been one of the better wrestlers on Smackdown due to how he is getting pushed. If he goes to RAW, I could see him getting lose in the shuffle and kill any momentum that he had on Smackdown.
Another brand that will feel the affects of this draft is NXT. If you recall when the WWE did this last year, they had American Alphas, Alexa Bliss, Carmella, Mojo Rawley, Nia Jax, and Finn Balor come up to the main roster. This showed on NXT taping for a few weeks as they were set to push new stars. I said it before and I will say it again, by having a draft every year in the WWE you are going to kill any momentum that a superstar had on one brand and who knows if they will get the same push on the other brand.
In regards to the wrestlers that get the call up from NXT, who knows if they will succeed on the main roster. An example of this is the Ascension. They were dominating in NXT as they held the NXT Tag titles for close to a year and once they were brought up to the main roster, they have not done anything memorable.
It will be interesting to see how this WWE Draft plays out and the Inscriber Magazine will keep you up to date on this draft.