MGP: SmackDown is the new land of opportunity following the WWE Draft

Welcome to another edition of the ‘Monday Gorilla Position’! A weekly column here at Cageside Seats that dissects the latest shows and reports in the world of WWE & AEW. In addition to interviews with your favorite professional wrestlers.

May 6, 2024 — It’s a new day in WWE.

With Backlash now in the rearview mirror, the newly drafted rosters for both Raw and SmackDown are now locked into place and Triple H isn’t messing around with the card he’s booked for tonight.

The road to crowning the next King and Queen of the Rings will get kickstarted at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut and these opening round contests are a clear indication that WWE is putting more stock into the tournaments this year than some of the most recent iterations.

First round men’s matches on Raw tonight:

• GUNTHER vs. Sheamus
• Drew McIntyre vs. Finn Balor
• Ilja Dragunov vs. Ricochet
• Kofi Kingston vs. Rey Mysterio

First round women’s matches on Raw tonight:

• IYO SKY vs. Natalya
• Zelina Vega (reigning Queen) vs. Shayna Baszler
• Zoey Stark vs. Ivy Nile
• Asuka vs. Lyra Valkyria

Presumably the SmackDown side of the bracket will be unveiled at some point tonight, but what a start. As Sheamus would say, we most certainly could be in for banger, after banger, after banger, after banger, after banger, after banger, after banger… after banger.

A sign of things to come on the Red Brand?

The talent accumulated in this year’s WWE Draft, off of name recognition alone, would be enough for anyone to consider it the “A show”. CM Punk, Becky Lynch, Damian Priest, Braun Strowman, Jey Uso, Sami Zayn, Seth Rollins and Liv Morgan, in addition to the aforementioned KotR & QotR competitors. Not to mention potential breakout Superstars such as Bron Breakker, Bronson Reed, Alba Fyre, Dijak, and yes, I’ll throw the veteran Chad Gable into this category as well.

It’s an eclectic group that should produce, if nothing else, exemplary bell-to-bell action on a weekly basis.

Over on SmackDown, WWE emphasized putting together a deep and talented Women’s Division. Evidenced by Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill being selected first by GM Nick Aldis on each night of the draft.

The Men’s Division may have some scratching their heads. Social media is rarely a great barometer of public opinion, save for the rare #WeWantCody type campaign, but words like “weak” and “trash” have been tossed around the old interwebs the last few days.

Allow me to counter that pessimism with optimism, and frankly, the utmost excitement.

What SmackDown’s roster lacks is a wealth of talent who have “been there before” with “there” meaning successful runs in the main event scene. With Roman Reigns on hiatus for the foreseeable future, we’re talking about guys like Randy Orton, Kevin Owens and Bobby Lashley.

Even Undisputed WWE Champion, and newly anointed top guy, Cody Rhodes is sailing into uncharted waters. Which is why launching his first ever World Title run against a man the caliber of AJ Styles was such a wise decision. The American Nightmare should be working against the more accomplished Superstars to help establish himself, while WWE works to build up the rest of the SmackDown roster.

There is no shortage of talent that will be showing up to work on Friday nights. Many of these men and women just need an opportunity to do what they do best, but in a more meaningful spot.

While not an apples to apples comparison, it’s an incredibly similar roster construction to what SmackDown had after the 2016 WWE Draft. That led to a show that was widely considered more enjoyable than Raw, despite the Red Brand being home to a bevy of heavy hitters like Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Brock Lesnar, Chris Jericho, Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks.

With Shane McMahon and a retired (at the time) Daniel Bryan steering the ship, SmackDown Live developed into “The Land of Opportunity”. A fresh show that put the spotlight on many underutilized, and often, overlooked talents and wasn’t weighed down by the tired heel authority figure trope.

AJ Styles became the face that runs the place and captured his first WWE Championship. Bray Wyatt’s longstanding rivalry with Randy Orton was born — a story that carried the Eater of Worlds to his first WWE Championship, even if it was cut short with a loss to the Viper at WrestleMania 33.

Even in the Land of Opportunity, the booking was not perfect. On the heels of defeating Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins in a Shield triple threat dream match at WWE Battleground ‘16, then WWE Champion Dean Ambrose would see his stock steadily decline in the months that followed.

By WrestleMania 33 Ambrose would be relegated to wrestling on the pre-show, albeit in match for the Intercontinental Championship. Let’s face it though, the man we now know as Jon Moxley and WWE were never a marriage that was meant to last. The reigning IWGP Heavyweight Champion is much more suited to thrive in the spontaneous and violent atmosphere that AEW and NJPW provides.

The positives of the SmackDown Live era, however, vastly outweighed the negatives.

A renewed focus on tag team wrestling gave Jimmy and Jey Uso a blank canvas to completely reinvent themselves. A brief run with Roman Reigns prior to the WWE Draft that year, in retrospect what was a mini prequel to the Bloodline saga, served as the catalyst for a major attitude change for the Usos.

With their cousin being a nuclear heat magnet at the time, anyone within close proximity of “The Big Dog” would find themselves at the mercy of the WWE crowds across the country. Amidst a long babyface run that was well past its expiration date, The Usos convinced the creative team to listen to the fans and let them break bad.

After their post match attack on the Alpha Academy on the September 6, 2016 edition of SmackDown Live, Jimmy and Jey would wash away the bright colors that proudly showcased their Samoan heritage and fall into the shadows of what would soon be dubbed “The Uso Penitentiary”.

It was the first stepping stone in their ascension to becoming one of the all-time great tag teams in WWE. A journey highlighted by their classic rivalry with the New Day and multiple tag team championship reigns, including a record breaking 662 day run that came to an end in the main event of WrestleMania 39.

Long before GUNTHER signed with WWE, The Miz was cementing himself as one of the greatest Intercontinental Champions in company history. The move over to SmackDown, coupled with some harsh criticism from General Manager Daniel Bryan, lit a fire underneath the already 10-year veteran.

The battles that the A-lister and Dolph Ziggler, another locker room vet who would benefit from the switch to Tuesday nights, had over the Intercontinental Championship captured the hearts of the Blue Brand faithful everywhere. The pair delivered one of the more significant and memorable programs in that era of the workman’s title.

With Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks both having been drafted to Raw, Becky Lynch was was widely expected to be the face of the SmackDown Women’s Division out of the gate. Her adoring public practically willed her the opportunity. And while she would ultimately come back around to rightfully claim that spot two years later, it was a few diamonds in the rough that really gave WWE the immediate return on investment.

I highly recommend reading Becky Lynch’s book to get her firsthand account of where things went off the rails after she became the first ever SmackDown Women’s Champion. But while the now-New York Times Bestselling Author was struggling to find herself in the new landscape of WWE, the creative team gave a new stable of ladies their opportunity in the spotlight.

In hindsight, SmackDown cleaned up in the supplemental rounds of the 2016 Draft — nabbing Naomi, Alexa Bliss and Carmella with the 39th, 47th and 59th overall picks respectively.

Bliss would go on to claim five World Championships between December of 2016 and August of 2018 and benefitted greatly from getting to cut her teeth in front of those main roster crowds as she eventually grew into one of the company’s best overall performers.

Seven years after joining WWE’s developmental program, Naomi would finally get her chance to win gold as one of the first rivals to Little Miss Bliss. Proving once and for all that her talents stretch way beyond her ability to break it down on the dance floor.

Carmella may go down as one of the most under-appreciated female talents of the women’s wrestling renaissance. Whether it’s hyping up the crowd with a dance, taking an unceremonious beating on a big five PLE or creating a memorable MITB cash-in, Mella’s always been money.

Despite being praised as some of the best television WWE had produced in quite some time, SmackDown Live would ultimately lose its momentum as the creative team began to ignore everything that had made it a success. Eventually, they were producing a show that more resembled the product on Monday nights.

As it’s been said often, however, this is a new era in WWE. Triple H has now set the table to not only recreate the magic that flowed through the Blue Brand back in 2016, but allow it to flourish in ways the old regime (for some unfathomable reason) never did — at least not for the long haul.

With a fresh and massively popular WWE Champion, an increasingly chaotic and intriguing Bloodline story arc and a star-studded Women’s Division — SmackDown has more than enough drawing power.

Now the question is, which Superstars will benefit the most from the new roster breakdown?

WWE.com

It’s been well over two years since Bobby Lashley even sniffed the WWE Championship and the expectation should be for the All Mighty to test Cody Rhodes’ mettle in the near future.

Montez Ford is name that the fans and media alike having been mentioning as a singles star waiting to break out for going on five years now. With the Street Profits once again failing to re-capture tag team gold, will Ford and Angelo Dawkins finally get the chance to sink or swim on their own?

With Damage CTRL moving over to Monday Night Raw, a void has been created on the heel side of the women’s locker room. Newly acquired Nia Jax immediately takes over the top spot, with the fast rising Tiffany Stratton sliding in right behind her. Let the competition begin from there.

WWE Women’s Champion Bayley is in a prime spot to help elevate two women whom I believe have bright futures on SmackDown, in Chelsea Green and Candice LeRae. Green may be the most entertaining woman in WWE and should be a strong candidate for Ms. Money in the Bank.

LeRae meantime, is far too good at what she does to be kept on the bench as she was over on Raw. Candice is someone that Bayley greatly admires and I’d be willing to bet she’ll be making pitches to work with her now that they call the same brand home.

Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano have the talent and passion to easily take the SmackDown Tag Team Division by storm or excel on their own as singles competitors should Ciampa’s frustrations lead to a DIY breakup.

The only thing working against them is a lack of a third hour. Ciampa and Gargano really fit the mold of wrestlers that Raw has assembled, but more often than not, will not be allotted the opportunity to compete in matches longer than 10-15 minutes due to the time restraints on SmackDown.

I haven’t even mentioned the likes of Andrade or Santos Escobar, who have barely scratched the surface of what they can accomplish in WWE. Will LA Knight finally get his hands on singles gold? How long until Carmelo Hayes claims his spot in the main event?

Don’t sleep on this roster for a single second. Triple H has more than enough to work with and that’s before Bo Dallas and his rumored Wyatt 6 stable potentially show up on Friday nights (makes the most sense to me with Final Testament and LWO moving to Raw in the Draft).

It’s an extremely exciting time for both Raw and SmackDown as the rosters currently stand and there’s still the possibility of a trade or two being made… not to mention the impending returns of Charlotte Flair, Rhea Ripley, Alexa Bliss and others.

It’s more than okay if you’re fired up. You should be. I know I am.

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