Source: The Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Last night’s WWE Draft went according to plan as far as having the top programs see Roman Reigns versus Seth Rollins on RAW and John Cena versus AJ Styles on Smackdown.
The original plan had these two matches being title matches for each respective brand at WWE Summerslam. A lot changed leading up to last night, including Reigns’ failed WWE drug test and Brock Lesnar’s failed UFC drug test, in addition to Cena’s reduced schedule. None of these three circumstances actually changed plans for the draft of any picks for RAW and Smackdown, but it did change the order of some of the picks. One example given was that Randy Orton going to Smackdown was a given, because there are long term plans for him to feud with AJ Styles as the top babyface on live events since Cena will be off the road for a period of time.
Lesnar was originally supposed to be the first overall pick for RAW, at least as late as last week, before his announced UFC drug test failure. WWE wanted to use Lesnar’s win over Mark Hunt at UFC 200 for publicity, then Ambrose as WWE Champion would have been the second pick (and first overall) for Smackdown. After that, Rollins would have gone third to RAW, and Cena fourth to Smackdown.
