It was hard not to feel sorry for Smackdown during their first ever live episode, Raw was given more draft picks than them to begin with and then took the Women’s Champion, the Tag Team Champions and The United States Champion over to their brand and after the triple threat match on Sunday night, they could also have the WWE Champion.
Smackdown do have one definite Champion as they fought back by picking Intercontinental Champion The Miz, but at Battleground when The Awesome superstar takes on Raw draft pick Darren Young, the newly live show could lose their only title.
Obviously WWE wont allow this to be the case as they should hopefully be bringing more title belts to the Smackdown brand. That being said, some of the picks that the company made last night will ensure that they are already considered to be the A+ show when it comes to pure wrestling.
Dean Ambrose will obviously be the stand out main event player in the company but he will be backed up by John Cena and AJ Styles who will no doubt continue their feud following Battleground, Bray Wyatt could easily step into another feud with Dean Ambrose now that The Wyatt Family back-up seems to have disbanded and this time Bray will not have Undertaker in his sights. And the likes of American Alpha, The Vaudevillians and The Usos will show that the Tag Team Division can battle it out with with Raw.
The big news coming out of Smackdown’s live draft would be the competitive edge that they feel they have given their women’s division. Commissioner Shane McMahon and General Manager Daniel Bryan both admitted that they wanted Charlotte on their brand because she has the Women’s Championship but they do consider Becky Lynch to be the best wrestler.
As well as Becky Lynch Smackdown took on the talents of The Queen of Harts Natalya to allow the deep rooted personal rivalry between the duo to continue following Battleground. Alexa Bliss was a surprise pick given that many consider her not to be ready for the push just yet and Carmella was another shock out of the hat as the last female to head over to the Smackdown roster last night.
Both Carmella and Alexa have had their issues on NXT over the past few months so the competitive edge that these two women will bring into Smackdown’s locker room will be phenomenal. Both women will have something to prove alone since they have spent much of their NXT careers as valets to their real life partners with Alexa partnering Buddy Murphy and Wesley Blake whilst Carmella was paired up with Enzo Amore and Colin Cassidy.
Triple H explained that Carmella was not promoted along with Enzo and Cass a few months ago because he felt that there was much more for her to achieve on NXT, but now it must mean that she has proven herself. It will be interesting to see how these women adjust to life on the main roster away from their groups because Blake and Murphy disbanded and Enzo and Cass were picked for Raw.
One person that hasn’t been mentioned thus far is a woman who is widely considered to be one of the best pure athletes in WWE. Naomi was picked for Smackdown a few places ahead of her real life husband Jimmy Uso, but she will be an incredible addition to the roster because it may be that WWE finally give her the chances she deserves.
Naomi has been so close to wearing gold on so many occasions and with a much smaller, much more competitive roster, you have to think that finally this could be her time to shine. Eva Marie was obviously also included in the draft picks as she comes over from Raw. She made her official re-debut on the main roster ahead of this year’s WrestleMania, but it seems she still has a lot to prove to the WWE Universe.
Eva has definitely shown signs of in-ring improvement and being in matches with the likes of Becky Lynch and veterans like Natalya will only add to this improvement. Eva hasn’t been seen on WWE TV for a while so it will be interesting to see how much she has improved and what she can add to this roster.
As stated, Smackdown have began in an underdog position but both Shane and Daniel are aware of what their job role entails and they are ready to fight. Raw may have been handed all of the hard hitters and have seemingly won the first battle, but Smackdown have the wild cards and the superstars with the passion so they could well be the ones to win the war.
