First off, I think that overall the show was a success. As I will discuss, however, I found some of the “surprises” to be cliché and predictable. Even so, the roster movement was monumental! Lets get to it!

#1 Rey Mysterio to RAW: What can I say? RAW is where the little man goes to die. Besides Cena, who came over with the belt, not many superstars flourish after being drafted to RAW. I really hope the best for Rey, but at best I see him having a nice little IC title run.

#2 Jeff Hardy to Smackdown: This is great! Hardy was never going to get a title run with all of the major players on RAW. I’m really hopeful he’ll get the opportunity to get a Title run on Smackdown.

#3 CM Punk to RAW: I think CM Punk has loads of potential, so I hope they use him well on RAW. Every superstar who has cashed in their Money in the Bank match has won the Championship, so it will be interesting to see if Punk gets a hold of the RAW title (yes, I know that there is some cross-brand wrestling going on at Night of Champions, but one championship will go to RAW and one will go to Smackdown. Bank on it).

#4 Matt Hardy to ECW: Was anyone surprised? Really? To me this was as obvious as a Hulk Hogan blade-job. As soon as the Hardyz came out together I said, “Well this is going to be the world’s shortest reunion.” The Draft has a knack for selecting wrestlers who are in the ring. However, with the ECW and Smackdown brands overlapping so much this is basically a non-move.

#5 Jim Ross to Smackdown & #6 Michael Cole to RAW: To me this was the most shocking turn of events of the night. Yes, more shocking than #11. The voice of RAW goes to Smackdown. Holy crap! Did I see that coming? Hell no! I thought Tazz and Foley would switch, or maybe Numb-nuts and Cole, but JR? Wow.

#7 Batista to RAW: When I saw Batista come down and start beating on Edge, I again thought it was obvious he was being drafted. Nevertheless, I’ve never been high on Batista so I don’t have a strong opinion about this anyway.

#8 Umaga to Smackdown: I would have rather seen Umaga go to ECW, but with all of the cross-brand matches they do, he’ll get plenty of opportunity for some extreme matches. I hope he gets an ECW title run at some point.

#9 Kane to RAW: This solidifies the fact that the Undertaker will be back on Smackdown. They need to keep the brothers of destruction separated. I wouldn’t mind seeing Kane get a world title run on RAW.

#10 Kennedy to Smackdown: YES! This sets Kennedy up for a program with Edge to get revenge for when Edge “stole” his Money in the Bank match and put him out of action for a while. The verbal exchanges between Edge and Kennedy will be awesome! A Kennedy-MVP feud would also be great.

#11 HHH to Smackdown: Uhhhhhh… wuh? HHH to Smackdown? Perhaps he agreed to make the move only if JR continued to call his matches. Whatever the case may be, this is the biggest draft selection since… since… since HHH was drafted to Smackdown! There better not be a post-draft trade which would send HHH back to RAW.

So if we look at them side by side, here is what happened:

RAW gets: Mysterio, CM Punk, Batista, Kane, and Michael Cole
Smackdown gets: Jeff Hardy, Umaga, Kennedy, HHH and JR
ECW gets: Matt Hardy

WINNER - Smackdown needed someone other than Edge and MVP to work the mic. They get HHH and Kennedy and the best announcer in the entire world of wrestling. To me it looks like they’re really trying to push Smackdown as an equivalent brand to RAW.

LOSER – ECW loses CM Punk and Kane. They might as well just meld ECW into Smackdown and rename the show “More Heat”. Really, the brand that needed the most help gets none.

LOSER – RAW loses HHH, Jeff Hardy, Kennedy, Umaga and JR. Don’t get me wrong, RAW is still the brand to watch, as they have loads of talent, but I say HHH is the man in the WWE. Losing the voice of wrestling doesn’t help either. At the same time, perhaps we’ll see some other wrestlers get pushed who wouldn’t normally if HHH were still on RAW.

Overall it was a great night. I’m not going into details about the end of the show because I thought it was stupid. Well, not as stupid as it would be if they blew up Vince McMahon’s Limo, cuz that would look silly, right?

-The Mulch