The first night of the WWE Draft took place on SmackDown and there are a plethora of stars for General Managers Nick Aldis and Adam Pearce to choose from. As the first round got underway, one of the biggest stars in the women’s division in Bianca Belair and NXT stand out Carmelo Hayes were both drafted to SmackDown. Hayes has been competing on the blue brand for quite some time, but things have now been made official. For the first round Raw picks, “Main Event” Jey Uso and former World Heavyweight Champion Seth “Freakin” Rollins.
The former World Heavyweight Champion Rollins will remain on Raw where he’s been for the last year carrying the red brand with his title defenses amidst Reigns being largely absent. Rollins lost the championship at WrestleMania to Drew McIntyre who lost it to MITB winner Damian Priest. Rollins is currently out injured as he recently underwent surgery on his knee following his two huge WrestleMania matches. Heading into the show, Rollins had gotten injured in a title defense against Jinder Mahal, suffering from a grade 2 tear on his MCL and a partially torn medial meniscus. He was cleared in February and returned to the ring in March.
Although Punk is not available in the SmackDown draft pool and will instead be part of Monday’s picks, if Punk remains on Raw it would be a natural fit for the feud between Rollins and Punk to be revisited. When Punk returned at Survivor Series all signs pointed to a title match between himself and Rollins which he later confirmed, but with Punk being injured WWE was forced to pivot to the McIntyre feud.
