Smark Out Moment

Next week will be the 2019 WWE Draft, wherein Raw and SmackDown will trade superstars in order to shuffle the deck and better position the company going forward into WrestleMania season in an attempt to offset some of the problems created from the lackluster Superstar Shake-up earlier this year.

Originally, that was supposed to be a two-night affair. It turned into a month of random trades that were pretty much immediately thrown out as irrelevant with the Wild Card rule put in place. This was WWE's answer to the problem of not having a proper balance and wanting to feature more of the big stars on both brands, rather than building the ones currently on the roster up to a point where fans could get invested in people not named Becky Lynch, Roman Reigns, etc.

After Hell in a Cell, the Smack Talk crew will be holding a Mock Draft of our own, where we'll pick superstars as if we were the general managers of three different brands, but I wanted to do something else here, too. That will be random and circumstantial. I'll have written up various predictions posts on what I think WWE will do with this draft ahead of time, too. But what this will do is examine what I think WWE should do with the various superstars.

TL;DR = Here is how I think WWE should balance the rosters in order to have the most success from now until April 2020, with a little explanation for why I made these moves if someone changed.


MONDAY NIGHT RAW - MALE SUPERSTARS:

AJ Styles
Aleister Black *1
Andrade *1
AOP (Akam and Rezar)
The Ascension (Konnor and Viktor)
King Baron Corbin
Braun Strowman
Bray Wyatt
Cedric Alexander
Cesaro
Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder
Dolph Ziggler *3
Drew McIntyre
EC3
Elias *4
Eric Young
Heath Slater
Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows
The Miz
Mojo Rawley
No Way Jose
Ricochet
Robert Roode
Roman Reigns *2
Samoa Joe
The Street Profits *5
The Usos
The Viking Raiders
Titus O'Neil

*1 - I'm swapping Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair. That means Andrade has to go with Flair, so he brings along Zelina Vega, which means Aleister Black has to go with her. You keep the couples together.

*2 - That's also why Seth Rollins is moving to SmackDown to be with Becky Lynch, which means a big name like Roman Reigns has to balance him out. Plus, Rollins will have already feuded with all the big heels (Styles, Corbin, Wyatt, McIntyre, Joe) so there's no need for him to stay.

*3 - He has a Raw title. He has to be on Raw.

*4 - There's more time on Raw, which allows him to actually do his act. He's been shafted when it comes to screen time on the 2-hour SmackDown. SmackDown will also be more of a sports-oriented brand and he's more of a sports entertainment character that works with the Raw vibe.

*5 - The Street Profits practically are on Raw already. Let's just make it official.

Going forward, Raw's babyfaces would be, in order: Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, The Miz | Aleister Black, Ricochet, Cedric Alexander | Zack Ryder, No Way Jose, Curt Hawkins, Titus O'Neil, Heath Slater

Raw's heels, in order, would be: Bray Wyatt, Drew McIntyre, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles | King Baron Corbin, Cesaro, Robert Roode, Elias, Dolph Ziggler | EC3, Mojo Rawley, Eric Young

Tag teams should be ranked separately and would be AOP and Viking Raiders on top, The Street Profits, Usos and O.C. in the B-tier, Hawkins & Ryder and The Ascension in the C-tier and, naturally, some other sporadic teams like Ziggler/Roode and maybe Black/Ricochet and Lucha House Party filling in the blanks. Maybe even Slater Gator.

MONDAY NIGHT RAW - FEMALE SUPERSTARS:

Alexa Bliss
Charlotte Flair *1
Lacey Evans
Liv Morgan *2
Mickie James *3
Naomi
Natalya
Nia Jax
Nikki Cross
Sarah Logan
Sasha Banks
Tamina
Zelina Vega *1

*1 - I mentioned above that Flair swaps with Lynch, so Andrade comes with her and so does Vega.

*2 - Becky Lynch will be such a big focal point as the top babyface on SmackDown and there isn't enough room for her, Asuka, Carmella and others to get the right attention. If Morgan is a heel, no problem, she feuds with Flair/Naomi/Natalya. If she's a face, she feuds with Evans/Jax/Logan/Banks/Tamina/Vega.

*3 - Supposedly, Mickie James may join the commentary team. Even if that's not the case, when she's able to return to action, she'll work heel or face with anyone. Great utility player.

Some noteworthy feuds would be Flair/Banks, Flair/Evans, Flair/Vega, Flair/Natalya maybe if we do face-face, Banks/Natalya, Banks/Morgan, Banks/Naomi, Morgan/Logan and so on.

SMACKDOWN - MALE SUPERSTARS:

Ali
Apollo Crews
The B-Team (Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel)
The Bludgeon Brothers (Erick Rowan and Luke Harper)
Big Show
Bobby Lashley *2
Brock Lesnar *1
Buddy Murphy
Chad Gable
The Colons (Epico and Primo - probably just released, though)
Daniel Bryan
Finn Balor
The Hardy Boyz (Jeff Hardy and Matt Hardy)
Heavy Machinery
Jinder Mahal
Kevin Owens
Lars Sullivan
The New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods)
R-Truth
Randy Orton
The Revival (Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson) *3
Rey Mysterio *4
Rusev
Sami Zayn *5
Seth Rollins *6
Sheamus
Shelton Benjamin
Shinsuke Nakamura
Sin Cara

*1 - Brock Lesnar is going to beat Kofi Kingston. I have no doubts and wouldn't be able to change WWE's mind, nor Fox's preference. Thus, he has to go to SmackDown.

*2 - With Lesnar on SmackDown, I want to see Bobby Lashley go there, turn babyface and feud with Lesnar for something like Royal Rumble. His MMA experience will lend well to SmackDown's sports environment. Then, Lashley can feud with Lars Sullivan when he's ready, Buddy Murphy, Randy Orton, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Rusev. There's months of material.

*3 - The Revival are the SmackDown tag team champions. They have to be on SmackDown. Also, the blue brand can use more tag teams to hold down the fort.

*4 - If SmackDown is losing Andrade and Aleister Black, they need Rey Mysterio to be an upper-midcarder who can tap into the Hispanic market. He can also feud with Lesnar (ideally for not long), Lesnar, Mahal, Sullivan, Orton, Rusev, Zayn, Nakamura, Benjamin, etc.

*5 - The pairing between Zayn and Nakamura is too good to split them up. Since Nakamura has the midcard title on SmackDown and I'm not moving AJ Styles and The O.C. to compensate moving him over to Raw with the Intercontinental Championship and United States Championship switching brands, Zayn has to go to SmackDown. The blue brand can use him as a prominent heel, too, and they can even fight for the tag team titles.

*6 - Rollins goes to SmackDown to compensate for Reigns going to Raw and to be with Becky Lynch on Fridays. He'll have to stay away from Lesnar, as we've seen that enough, but he can feud with Murphy, Sullivan, Orton, Rusev, Zayn, Nakamura and have babyface feuds with someone like Balor or Ali, etc. He's getting the worst deal out of everyone, but sacrifices have to be made and he's burned out and doesn't need to be the prime focal point for a few months.

I'm pretty sure I'd turn Balor heel so he could feud with Rollins, Bryan, Ali, Crews, Gable, Mysterio, etc.

SMACKDOWN - FEMALE SUPERSTARS:

Asuka
Bayley
Becky Lynch *1
Carmella
Dana Brooke *2
Ember Moon
The IIconics (Billie Kay and Peyton Royce)
Kairi Sane
Lana
Mandy Rose
Ruby Riott *3
Shayna Baszler *4
Sonya Deville

*1 - Already explained. SmackDown wants The Man, so they get her, and Banks wins the title at Hell in a Cell.

*2 - I don't know. Why not?

*3 - Ruby Riott, once she's able to return, could pose a good challenge for Lynch once Lynch beats Bayley for the SmackDown Women's Championship.

*4 - Ultimately, the big threat for Lynch will be Shayna Baszler and that's your WrestleMania match.

NXT, NXT UK AND 205 LIVE:

I don't need to list these, as they all basically stay the same. What I will do, though, is clarify a few things:

1) Every person who is under 205 lbs is eligible to compete on 205 Live. It's a crossover brand. This includes Raw, SmackDown, and NXT.

2) That means you could see people from Raw like Cedric Alexander, The Lucha House Party, Ricochet. SmackDown has Ali, Chad Gable, Finn Balor, Rey Mysterio, Xavier Woods, The Colons, etc. All the people from NXT who have shown up like Angel Garza and Isaiah "Swerve" Scott as well as more people who haven't (Joaquin Wilde, Pete Dunne) are ALL eligible.

3) Lio Rush becomes an official NXT guy if he isn't already.

4) Shayna Baszler was the main loss for NXT, going to SmackDown. However, all the people that aren't normally accounted for in the Performance Center like Deonna Purrazzo, Kavita Devi, MJ Jenkins, Jessi Kamea and more will make up for it eventually.

5) Kassius Ohno would be more of an NXT star than NXT UK. His feud with Sid Scala forces him to take his exit, sort of, even though...

6) Everyone from NXT UK and NXT can intermingle. Dakota Kai can fight Kay Lee Ray for the NXT UK Women's Championship at any moment. NXT UK is just a subordinate under NXT and not a separate brand, even though some people like Gallus will show up more on the UK side, naturally.

7) How often people appear on whichever brand depends on where they live, quite a bit. Someone like Rik Bugez is more of an NXT guy. Someone like Jordan Devlin is NXT UK. Ridge Holland could be both, I don't know. Denzel Dejournette is NXT. So on and so forth.

All in all, the message here is that NXT and NXT UK share a roster, even though there are some people who tend to appear almost exclusive to one of those shows, and everybody on 205 Live is now part of NXT, and everyone on Raw and SmackDown is also eligible to compete on the actual 205 Live program but won't appear on NXT or NXT UK, whereas the Cruiserweight Championship could show up on all television shows.