WWE has announced that their brand split and draft will officially take place on July 19th. It’s an exciting time as not only will the roster be finding out which brand they have been assigned to, but the draft will also take place during the first ever live 'Smackdown.'Plans for the live draft were announced by WWE on Monday, the day after their annual Money in the BankPay-Per-View, which saw Dean Ambrose win the WWE championship from Seth Rollins, after immediately cashing in his briefcase.
Exciting new era
In a statement, WWEExecutive Producer Kevin Dunn said this was an “exciting new era for WWE” and added the company will once again be reinventing themselves by creating a second night of live Television.
'Smackdown' has always been the WWE’s secondary show and is prerecorded on Tuesday nights. But by making the show live, it may finally be able to compete with A-show ‘Raw’ on Monday nights.
Who will go where and what about the titles?
The big question now is who will go where and what will the draft mean for the different titles? There’s already been reports that there will be a second world title with one title being contested on each brand.Having two world titles could go either way for the WWE. It could, on one hand, give an opportunity to superstars who usually aren't given the chance to shine in the title picture. This happened during the first brand extension where superstars such as Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero increased their profile on Smackdown.
But two titles could also be negative, with both being devalued. With the way the WWE usually works, even with two world champions one will always be the superior title, leaving the other and by default its brand, looking secondary.
What will happen to NXT?
The brand extension could mean that more NXT wrestlers get the call up to the main roster, which is both good and bad news.
Recently we’ve seen Baron Corbin, Apollo Crews and Tyler Breeze leave NXT and all three are yet to make an impact on the main roster.So who could be next? Well, Finn Balor has certainly served his time in NXT, but the WWE will need to have a big angle ready for him to make sure he doesn't get lost in the shuffle. There’s also Shinsuke Nakamura and Samoa Joe, both are more than ready and both could make a huge impact on either brand.
Will legends be returning?
In recent days there’s been talk that the WWE has been in contact with a number of former superstars to help fill out the two rosters. Names that have been mentioned as being contacted by WWE include MVP, Carlito, Mr. Kennedy and bigger names such as Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy and even Bill Goldberg.
Whatever happens, one thing’s for sure, you won’t want to miss Smackdown on July 19th.
