June 13, 2005 Observer Newsletter: WWE Draft Lottery begins, UFC 53 recap

The WWE month-long draft lottery got off to a bang with WWE champion John Cena being sent to Raw, and Chris Benoit returning to Smackdown.

The idea of Cena going to Raw to feud with HHH was actually the plan dating back to late last year, with the idea Randy Orton (originally pegged to win the World title at Wrestlemania) would switch to Smackdown. A lot has happened since. It’s impossible to analyze this, because you don’t know what will stick, since there are still picks and trades to come until the end of the month. On Smackdown, Teddy Long said he would address the championship situation at the end of the month. Most likely, Batista would switch over to work with JBL (or Angle if he’s not switched over as a trade-off with someone like Orton), since they’ve given the impression the blow off to his feud with HHH will come on 6/26 at Vengeance in Las Vegas, because having Smackdown create a championship from scratch and giving Raw two belts makes no sense. Perhaps it’ll even be HHH. Without one or the other, if Cena stays on Raw, in no way is this a positive to the Smackdown side, which badly needed the shot in the arm with the move to Fridays in the fall. Perhaps one can argue a HHH move would be to Smackdown’s benefit (and I don’t believe that is happening), and while HHH himself may not be, the fact he’s there would lead to a stronger political push for big angles on the show, which would be to its benefit. Cena for Batista would have looked two months ago like a good trade for Smackdown, but now it would have to be viewed the opposite, as Cena has become the company’s hottest individual drawing card.

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