Tag: Wwe Draft Lottery 2005

One of WWE’s most newsworthy shows of the year, complete with major roster changes, the return of Hulk Hogan, and one of the biggest crowds and the likely most watched Raw of the year, took place on 6/27.

Before an announced sellout crowd (and there were no tickets available the day before the event) of 15,429 fans at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, Big Show and Rob Van Dam came to Raw and Batista, as World champion, and Christian were moved to Smackdown.

As expected, the Batista move meant the six-way of Smackdown was instead of being for a new belt, was for a shot at Batista on 7/24 in Buffalo for the Great American Bash PPV. JBL, also not surprisingly, survived everyone’s finisher and pinned Christian in the end to the groans of fans who were hopeful Christian, who got the biggest reaction of anyone on the Smackdown show, would break through into genuine stardom. It appears the Bash, the company’s next PPV, will be headlined by, besides Batista vs. JBL for the title, Undertaker against either Randy Orton (if he’s cleared and it seems most likely) or Muhammad Hassan, and another Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero match.

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The WWE month-long draft lottery got off to a bang with WWE champion John Cena being sent to Raw, and Chris Benoit returning to Smackdown.

The idea of Cena going to Raw to feud with HHH was actually the plan dating back to late last year, with the idea Randy Orton (originally pegged to win the World title at Wrestlemania) would switch to Smackdown. A lot has happened since. It’s impossible to analyze this, because you don’t know what will stick, since there are still picks and trades to come until the end of the month. On Smackdown, Teddy Long said he would address the championship situation at the end of the month. Most likely, Batista would switch over to work with JBL (or Angle if he’s not switched over as a trade-off with someone like Orton), since they’ve given the impression the blow off to his feud with HHH will come on 6/26 at Vengeance in Las Vegas, because having Smackdown create a championship from scratch and giving Raw two belts makes no sense. Perhaps it’ll even be HHH. Without one or the other, if Cena stays on Raw, in no way is this a positive to the Smackdown side, which badly needed the shot in the arm with the move to Fridays in the fall. Perhaps one can argue a HHH move would be to Smackdown’s benefit (and I don’t believe that is happening), and while HHH himself may not be, the fact he’s there would lead to a stronger political push for big angles on the show, which would be to its benefit. Cena for Batista would have looked two months ago like a good trade for Smackdown, but now it would have to be viewed the opposite, as Cena has become the company’s hottest individual drawing card.

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