For the past several months, speculation has mounted on what the future holds for the draft in the WWE. Several weeks back, it was reported that the company was quietly doing away with the wildcard rule and now it sounds like WWE will be reinforcing the draft when Smackdown Live heads over to Fox.
The WWE Draft (or Superstar Shake-up) will reportedly be held on the October 11 and 14 episodes of Raw and Smackdown. The company is looking to have both shows feel different from one another, and the wildcard rule will be scrapped completely.
Dave Meltzer from the Wrestling Observer Radio is stating that there won’t be any big changes when it comes to the draft, as the current line-up for Raw and Smackdown will be identical (transcript courtesy of wrestletalk.com):
“The idea is that the talent line-up they did in the last draft is kinda gonna be the talent line-up, there’s gonna be some change." However, Meltzer is also reporting that NXT could be included in the draft this time around. “They may include some NXT people, but the changes are going to be made with yet another draft.”
There’s no word on who could possibly switch brands, but it should be interesting to see who goes over to NXT if the developmental brand is included.