With the first draft in a few years upcoming, I thought this would be an ideal time to look back at drafts gone by and look at some of the weird and wonderful happenings on drafts gone by.
Back in 2011 the last person to be drafted “live” was John Cena, who happened to be the first man drafted in the very same evening, yes that has happened before, can you guess who it happened to the first time? Send me your answers and first one to get it correct will get a retweet from yours truly. Anyway, the last person to be drafted in the last draft in 2011, was Sheamus, interesting huh?
Going all the way back to the first draft in 2002 when the original brand split took place, can you remember the guys in control of Raw & Smackdown? Well Ric Flair had control of Raw and Vince McMahon had control of Smackdown. The very first pick in the draft history was a guy by the name of The Rock. Interestingly Maven of Tough Enough fame got drafted before Chris Jericho, who came up with that idea?
We then had a 2 year gap from any shenanigans of the draft, but it did return in 2004. The “Live” draft brought up names such as Mark Jindrak, Nidia & Teddy Long getting drafted, can we even blame Vince Russo for that idea? Probably not. Anyway perhaps the most shocking drafts were Triple H & Edge swapping shows. Paul Heyman got drafted too but he “quit” can anyone remember the reason why he did so?
2005 witnessed the first real massive names being drafted in a block. John Cena, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Randy Orton, RVD & Batista all swapped shows during the “live” draft, though the most interesting name for me on the draft was a certain Muhammad Hassan. Looking back at the 2005 “online” draft the name Simon Dean comes up, ahh memories of him on his segway haha.
2006 is where ECW came back to life, Heyman picked a bunch of old ECW guys, oh he also picked Kurt Angle, well and the rest we know is history.
Looking back at it the 2007 draft really does look a little bland. The WWE’s love for Bobby Lashley kicked in to overdrive as he was moved from ECW to Raw, and Mr Kennedy Kennedy got move to SD but other than Benoit moving to ECW to fill the role vacated by Kurt, it was the supplemental draft that was better for the company. Miz & Jonny ‘Don’t call me Monday’ Nitro went to ECW and became a superb tag team, and The Majors went to SD to become The Edgeheads (Remember that Zack Ryder Wooo Wooo Wooo!!!)
The 2008 draft will be remembered for two things. CM Punk getting to Raw and Triple H going to Smackdown. I suppose people may remember that Michael Cole & JR got swapped too and that did cause a bit of a stir back then. However in the supplemental draft we had legendary names such as Deuce, Trevor Murdoch, DH Smith & Chuck Palumbo swapping shows, ahhh memories as these guys.
Much like the 2008 draft, the 2009 draft was around Punk & Trips swapping shows, though the name that stands out for me during the “live” draft is Mr I love Double Double E himself Vladimir Kozlov. Wow that guy was brilliant. The supplemental draft has names such as Cryme Tyme swapping shows, and a certain guy called Festus (Hi Gallows remember that poor gimmick? I do wonder what biscuits & gravy is like though.)
As i’ve already briefly covered the 2011 draft, the 2010 draft pretty much screwed SD over. They lost Edge, John Morrison & Chris Jericho and got Big Show, Kelly Kelly & Christian in return, not to mention they got Hornswoggle in the supplemental draft, oh and a person on his last legs during his run Montel Vontavious Porter (Ballin).
So that’s my rather tongue in cheek look back at the draft history. Don’t forget to tweet me your answers to my question and I will retweet the first answer. I’ll also retweet some of your favourite draft moments from drafts gone by if you send them to me in the build up to the next draft.
Also please keep an eye out for my next article where i’ll be taking a look back in time at a superstar from days gone by. Thanks for reading and see you next time.
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