In 2002, following the acquisition of the remains of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) introduced the brand split, dividing its roster among two brands, Raw and SmackDown, represented by the shows of the same name.[1] The brand split would continue until 2011, with a draft held every year (except 2003) to refresh the brands' rosters. In August 2011, the brand split ended, allowing all WWE wrestlers to appear on both shows.[2]
In mid-2016, with a larger roster of wrestlers, in part thanks to WWE's developmental brand NXT, WWE decided to reintroduce the brand split with a draft to be held on the July 19 episode of SmackDown – the show's debut broadcast on the USA Network, as well as its renaming to SmackDown Live (with the show now broadcasting live as it was previously aired on tape delay). On the July 11 episode of Monday Night Raw, WWE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Vince McMahon appointed Shane McMahon as the commissioner of SmackDown and Stephanie McMahon as the commissioner of Raw.[3] The following week, the commissioners introduced Mick Foley and Daniel Bryan as the general managers of Raw and SmackDown, respectively.[4]
The rules of the draft were posted to WWE's website on July 17.[5][6] They were the following:
Raw received the first overall draft pick.
For every two draft picks for SmackDown, Raw received three picks (due to Raw being a three-hour show, while SmackDown is two hours).
Tag teams counted as one pick unless a commissioner/general manager specifically only wanted a single member from the team as their pick.
Six draft picks had to be made from the NXT roster; title holders could not be picked.
Results
In addition to the televised draft, the live episode of SmackDown also featured several matches.
Several wrestlers remained undrafted mainly due to injury or inactivity, some of which eventually were assigned to a brand. The chart is organized by date.[9]
Returned to the Raw brand as "Emmalina", then announced her makeover back to "Emma". She was off television until April 3, 2017, where she returned as her evil-Emma character.
Returned at SmackDown's 900th episode on November 15, 2016. Subsequently, appeared on the January 9, 2017 episode of Raw, where he declared his unaffiliation to any brand.
Announced he had quietly retired on August 2, 2019.[11] Even after coming out of retirement and returning to WWE on a part-time basis on 2024, The Rock did not affiliate with any brand.
Lana, Maryse, and Bob Backlund were each drafted in the same pick as their respective clients. Dana Brooke was drafted separately from her client Charlotte, but continued to manage her for several months afterwards.
On November 29, 2016, a new show called 205 Live premiered. The new show exclusively features WWE's cruiserweight division. The division was formerly exclusive to Monday Night Raw, but became shared between Raw and 205 Live until 205 Live became its own brand in 2018.[13][14]
As a result of the reintroduction of the brand extension, the July 19 Draft episode (and the first live episode) of SmackDown on Tuesdays gained a viewership by 2.2 rating with 3.17 million viewers (compare to Raw's rating with 3.04 million viewers on the previous night), and was SmackDown's highest rated episode since December 2010.[15][16][17]
References
^Zimmerman, Christopher Robin (March 26, 2002). "WWE Draft 2002 Recap". Archived from the original on March 3, 2012. Retrieved February 23, 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Nemer, Paul (August 30, 2011). "Raw Results – 8/29/11". Wrestleview. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
