The most important thing for the draft to accomplish was to create a clear distinction between the brands, and I believe they accomplished that. The more I think about how they split up the talent, the more confident I am in WWE's vision.

What is Smackdown?

Smackdown is the "A" Show, and the voting on WWE.com and Social Media confirms that. The internet fans don't get it, but WWE set themselves up very well with Smackdown. The big complaint is that Smackdown doesn't have enough complimentary talent. They don't have enough lower and midcarders, they don't have enough women, and they don't have enough tag teams. That's OK, because they're not going to be the focus of the show. WWE is trying to attack the traditional casual audience. Smackdown is two hours and they're never going to compete with Monday Night Football, so they loaded it with top singles stars that they believe (and history shows) are more likely to appeal to that demographic. With five established top-of-the-card performers (Cena, Orton, Ambrose, Styles, and Wyatt) and guys like Baron Corbin, Dolph Ziggler, Alberto Del Rio, and Kane to keep feuds fresh over the first year, they've set themselves up to have a very strong male singles division. The lack of lower-and-midcard wrestlers probably indicates the mid-card title will be put on someone at least in that secondary group most of the time.

They have enough talented women and tag teams to make this work. The tag team division will likely revolve on American Alpha. The womens division will likely revolve around Becky Lynch. Could they last for years like this? No, but it doesn't have to. With only about 90 minutes of content every week, they're probably going to max-out on one or two segments for each division, so keeping them hot for a year won't be a problem. Returns and call-ups (Nikki and Brie Bella, specifically) will help a lot to fight the stagnation people expect to set in.

In short, Smackdown has been built to attract the audience they believe they're losing to Monday Night Football. It's two hours, so they've loaded up the appeal for the traditional casual fan in hopes of bringing some of them back into the fold. The niche interests like taking womens wrestling seriously, tag team wrestling, and a strong mid-card aren't the focus. WWE was at it's peak with a strong main event scene, but the rest of the card was often hit-or-miss. It will be important to build up more credible tag teams, but that's within their ability.

What is Raw?

Raw has a really terrible main event scene. It's basically a two-man show with Rollins and Reigns acting as complementary talent to appeal to each segment of the desired audience. Brock will be around sometimes, but Raw's main event scene won't be packed with top talent. Expect to see a lot of Braun Strowman vs Roman Reigns and the like, similar to how WWE went hard with Cena vs Monsters in 07/08. That said, everything else is stronger than Smackdown. They have three of the four top tag teams in the company, they have a strong mid-card scene, and a stronger womens division (Even if I think you're destined to see a Dana Brooke is Randy Orton to Charlotte's Triple H storyline)

They have 135 minutes of content to fill every week and they have very few legitimate main event talents, so expect to see CRAZY stuff like tag teams and women main eventing TV shows. There will be more talking and there will be more authority related drama. Returns and call-ups will play a huge factor on Raw as well. Look for Raw to add 3-5 Cruiserweights and to be the recipient of a fair number of the call-ups.

In short, Raw is the variety hour, with a well balanced roster attacking a couple of key demographics. Raw wants to attract the hardcore wrestling fan and the casual female audience ... the fans that don't care about Monday Night Football

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Where do the call-ups go?

Spoiler:

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But Ian, you have every key talent going to Raw? - As singles stars get established on Raw, they'll be shifted over to Smackdown. That's the benefit of being the main event brand.

I like your logic trying to attract casual viewers to a night with lighter competition.

and two hours. I think Vince sees this as an opportunity to get the hell out of that competition with the NFL without looking like a total bitch.

I think the draft actually weakened both rosters. Smackdown is fucked if they lose multiple top talents to injuries and RAW only has one top tier talent who can draw rn.

Maybe the idea was to just use the draft as a gimmick to get people to switch from watching RAW all the time to SmackDown.

It would have been better though to just make SmackDown more important without a brand split.

It woulda been a good idea if the product as a whole wasn't so bad tho

You're too logical. This all makes too much sense.

Yeah, Vince isn't that smart

Missing the hottest free agent out there, Heath Slater