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When Vince McMahon purchased WCW, the initial plan was to air a WCW television show on a weekly basis. When no interest was shown by networks, Vince was left with an incredibly large roster and little television time. Along with this, there was no more competition left for the WWF to conquer.
It was decided then that the WWF would create it's own competition by splitting it's roster in two, creating 2 separate brands of the WWF. The Raw Brand and the Smackdown Brand would have unique rosters, a unique weekly television show, and eventually, both rosters would have their own pay per view events. The original brand split happened in 2002 when the WWF held the very first draft on WWF television.
With Ric Flair owning Raw and Vince McMahon owning Smackdown, the split owners of the World Wrestling Federation would choose superstars to represent their respective brands. This video looks at the very first WWF draft in 2002 when Flair and McMahon would split the entire WWF roster, changing the entire WWF in the process.
Topics covered in this video include:
00:00 - The WWF roster becomes overloaded
05:31 - Ric Flair and Vince McMahon prepare for the first draft
08:50 - The first drafted superstars
14:13 - Flair and McMahon boost their rosters with Hogan, RVD and Edge
18:21 - Brock Lesnar and others are drafted
- Much More!
#WWE #Wrestling #Draft
The First Ever WWF Draft
1 095 Shikime 112 mijë
I didnt remember this very well but I have to agree it felt fresh and it was great the first time. Now I dont watch wwe to be honest but as a wrestling fan, this made me realize how big are the rosters of the wrestling companies nowdays, not only wwe obviously. But I just didnt notice before that AEW has 91 wrestlers in their roster with only one show on tv at the moment, they have Dark on youtube but even with the planned second show on tv thats only an hour more of tv. I know that some of the wrestlers are going to be let go eventually specially some of the lower card guys but I also know that there are more wrestlers to debut this year. Is going to be really hard to find time for everyone. WWE has had the same problem since they bought wcw, I really hope AEW dont become another version of that....the only solution that I can think is to give more importance to AEW Dark, they did a great job with that booking the main eventers before the pandemic, hopefully the can do that when things get back to normal.
The start of the Ruthless Aggression Era
I remember going to get the first raw vs smackdown video game with vince's face one red eye n the other blue.
Do u have download links to some of the music featured in your videos?
Didn’t they split up the Dudley Boyz in this draft?
My 10 Smackdown draft picks would be 1. The Rock 2. Chris Jericho 3. Edge 4. Hulk Hogan 5. Tag team Champions 6. RUKISHI 7. Mark Henry 8. DVON 9. William Regal 10. Maven the Hardcore Champion
I'll be honest here ... I love your documentaries, but I'm glad I lost interest in WWE before this timeline. This seems really forced and still based on the idea to outsource one format.
No one wants wcw, but they want wwe’s ecw
So basically it's like Pokemon Red and Blue. Same game but exclusive Pokemon (wrestler) on each game.
I feel like the brand split was way better than the invasion
Kurt straight up carried Vince in that draft.. Flair was straight up killing Vince
so in storyline for Flair to face Undertaker at Wrestlemaina he had to give up ownership for a brief time.. that makes no sence what so ever Vince , Shane and Steph never had to give up their share of the company for a short time when they wrestled so why did Flair.
Maven got drafted on the show, but Chris Jericho didn't 😂😂😂😂
I think the brand split showed everyone who was an actual wrestling fan. People saying that they stopped watching after the split..why? They started focusing on in-ring work more,pushing new stars. Youre gonna say that WCW 2000 had you on the edge of your seat but not Smackdown in 2002? I guess because Rock/Austin left, so did they because it stopped being "cool and trendy".
Say the rock says he wanted the fans to remember him but trust they was all the same fans on raw and sd
It is a sad world when Mr Perfect vs Tazz lasts 2 minutes in duration and it barely gets a mention nearly 20 years later. These two men are legends in their own right.
This draft sucked for people like me who didn't have cable!
Spring Break 2002 during mid-season Sixth Grade Year Huffman Middle School in Birmingham, Alabama.
You must have to do so much research that it makes me want to help you 😂 love the videos!
350 shows a year god damn thats ridiculous no wonder everybody was on some sort of recreational substance. Muhfuckas never got to see anything outside of damn body slams, drop kicks, and rest holds lol. Its only so much money to be made Vince smh people gotta live
nWo was drafted together because of a clause in their contract. Billy & Chuck were drafted together because they were the tag champions.
I actually remember watching Tazz and Mr. Perfect and thought it should've went longer. But that's reality
Just a theory of mines, what if Vince sent some of his top wrestlers to WCW in order for Vince to slowly take over the company? I mean think about it...WCW owned by Ted Turner, billionaire had some of Vince’s top sellers wrestlers, first to have a Thursday nights wrestling show between the two, but couldn’t defeat Vince? When the company went down, those same guys who left in the beginning came back.
Best time to be a wrestling fan
Vince could have kept the WCW brand and its wrestlers run them separately and have an annual WWF vs WCW pay per view event.
except nobody wanted WCW
I've been watching the videos in order since the Invasion, I never realized how much I actually miss the storylines from back then, how they blended so well and how some stories ended up having more than just 2 people or a certain group of people. 😳🤷🏽♂️🤘🏽😎👍🏽
Brand exclusivity was a big deal during Ruthless Aggression. It's a shame they started to take it for granted in later years.
Worst idea period
test
I stopped watching during the draft
Can you do one on AEW?
Vince encouraged the competition but as soon as the Smackdown Team brought that competition Raw suddenly drafts some stars over to Raw.... yeah Vince really wanted that "competition"
I was 6 in 2002 🤦🏽♂️🤧
Imagine if it was a real competition and they had Raw and Smackdown run live against each other. 😱
Your doing God’s work . Thank you sir
When I was a fanatic, I was like "booh invaders". Now that I see things a little more clearly, I only can imagine how many jobs were lost in the merging process.
It would have been cool if WCW was kept alive. Imagine wrestlers like the Undertaker making a Monday night nitro appearance against Hogan and the NWO. So many creative ideas could have been implemented.
Having two world champions was the stupidest thing ever. The World champion should be the champion of all of WWE/F regardless of show. They could have done something where they had Raw champions and Smackdown champions that would hold the right to challenge for that world title. but having two world titles and trying to sell me on the fact that they're equally elite is really insulting in my opinion.
I raw and smackdown had there own ppv event shows today now they compete on ppv shows
At first, I thought I was getting rick roll’d
aew needs to step up fast i need vince to start competing again.
Please do a brand extension year 1 video and onwards
The last days of WCW is better than WWE today. It was just 20 years ahead of its time
i dont understand.. is this all real or is it not? wtf
I vaguely remember that the draft rule was explained at the time. I can't remember how he did it but Vince convinced the Board to allow the nWo to be drafted as a single unit - assuming he's be the one drafting them. As for B&C, as Champions they were drafted as a unit by default. Everyone else was fair game . I miss when WWE used to bother explaining things like that.
later on over the year it became a joke becoming a drop off jobbers and bury wrestlers or ones they had nothing for them to ecw and mid carders to smack down
As always a great video. There are other channels that can do a Stone Cold bio and couldnt even come close to a video you could do about a jobber. Speaking of jobber, you should do The Brooklyn Brawler/Steve Lombardi.
Could have skipped the first 5 mins
@greenyy I concur
My understanding of the nWo/Dudley Boyz etc discrepancy was that tag-teams COULD be drafted together but didn't HAVE to be. Flair drafted a Dudley solo just so Vince wouldnt have the Dudley Boyz as a tag team, while the APA got split because the lottery was 'random'. Of course the real anser was 'becaue WWE wanted it like that' but that was my assumption
Dangerous Danny Davis and the Hebners
The Drafts are stupid. They should of kept WCW brand going. healthy competition btween both brands with different people writhing the stories and build ups. Never crossing over and it be about who can make the most out of the talent they have. Let other people have ideas and see what they can build with what they have, almost as if they were truly competing companies. Let performers choose which of the two brands they want to join as long as the brand wants them. For example, lets say WWE brand has "Stunning Steve Austin" but WWE writers just fail miserably with the character and just can't sell a single t-shirt. Steve Austin leaves the WWE brand and goes WCW where Jim Cornette lets him try the "Stone Cold Steve Austin" character, slam dunk Austin is given the chance to put forth his vision. I could go into more detail into why the Raw/Smackdown drafts are just pointless when the wrestlers just end up crossing over 3 days later for no reason.
I miss wcw
lol even as a kid I wondered why they could draft NWO as a stable but had to break up APA and Dudley Boyz
"Flair lost to the Undertaker by the way" This got me good
That Draft night also marked the last time we saw the classic Raw Steel structured Titantron
Smackdown was the winner good times always remmber this and smackdown 4 on ps2 played draft all the time good video brother xx
i honestly thought .. because they have talent going on both shows SD and RAW their wrestling on both shows , so i thought it was a brand split to give the wrestlers a break , so in stead of wrestling on both shows their only wrestling on 1 brand , and having the rest of the week off
Ugh hate when the foreigners try to make there own videos and you can’t even understand the main guy.... horrid!!
Back when wwe aka wwf was exciting to watch just like this channel and just like this video.
The draft was the absolute best thing WWE could have done with their overloaded roster. Unfortunately, we couldn't afford cable at the time, so I would only see half of the roster, but really enjoyed the shows that Smackdown gave us. Also gotta love how Stone Cold was given permission as a free agent to appear on whatever show he wanted. As if Vince could actually control what Austin did.
Ironically, Kurt would become SD GM years later.
This video shows how much WWE has fallen the rosters was stacked back then.
I agree, I love these videos. They’re helping me through co-vid19.
any one else see the steroid acne on Rikisi chest his gimmick was to be fat and dance wtf would he need them for?
The original brand extension is so much better than the modern one and it's mainly because you have stars on the respective shows during the ruthless aggression era
I hated this at first cause it broke up my favorite tag teams but I see why it needed to happen
I love history and someone who says 99.9% of it ...this channel is really good i hope more people catch on and subscribe
I live in the UK. I could only watch Smackdown, as it was shown at 12 on a Saturday morning on Sky One. We didn’t have cable TV so couldn’t watch Raw, which was shown on Friday nights. Still bitter about not getting to see the likes of Undertaker, Kane, RVD, etc.
The REAL end to the Attitude era. You can say Austin walking out in June 2002 and Rock losing to Brock for the title before leaving for a movie at Summer Slam 2002 were the final nails in the coffin and call Austin vs Rock III at Wrestlemania 19 a bonus chapter.. With the draft, first brand split and name change to WWE nobody liked any of this at the time but I'd rather watch those episodes back then over and over before getting through one episode of Raw or Smackdown today. I as a fan watching weekly back then will always believe Spring into Summer 2002 was the real ending to the Attitude era when I stood back and really realized it was over and the transition into the Ruthless Aggression era
The first WWE draft in 2002 was epic. We saw many great stars being drafted to either Raw or Smackdown. It is sad that some of these guys have since passed away, but they were awesome on the shows that they were drafted to. I will talk about some of the wrestlers who were drafted. I will even talk about Vince McMahon and Ric Flair as well, though both were not drafted as they were the Co-Owners of WWE at the time. Ric Flair, the owner of Raw, stayed on Raw and went on to feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin a couple months later. In June 2002, Flair faced Mr. McMahon. Whoever won the match would gain 100% ownership of WWE. McMahon defeated Flair, with the help of then newcomer Brock Lesnar, and regained full ownership of WWE. Flair would stay on Raw until 2007 when he was drafted to Smackdown. Test(Andrew Martin) was drafted to Smackdown and within the next couple months, he would face the likes of Randy Orton, Triple H, and The Hurricane on the blue brand. He also entered the King of the Ring tournament during his time on Smackdown. Test left Smackdown in July 2002 and joined Raw and remained on Raw until his release from WWE in 2004. Upon his return to WWE, Test then joined the ECW brand until he was released again in 2007. He died two years after that. Undertaker was drafted to Raw by his WrestleMania 18 opponent, Ric Flair. During his time on the red brand, Undertaker would feud with the likes of Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin and continued to poke jabs at Flair. He also faced Jeff Hardy a couple of times on Raw, including a Ladder Match for the WWE Undisputed Championship on the July 1,2002 Raw. After feuding with the Un-Americans and defeating Test at SummerSlam 2002, Undertaker was then traded to Smackdown by then Smackdown General Manager Stephanie McMahon and remained on Smackdown for the next several years. Starting in 2011, Undertaker would only appear in WWE a few times a year. In June 2020, Undertaker formally announced his retirement from wrestling. Vince McMahon became the owner of Smackdown as part of the draft and drafted several Superstars to the blue brand, including The Rock, Kurt Angle, Edge, Chris Benoit and Rob Van Dam, among others. Kane was drafted to Raw by Co-owner Flair and began a short feud with the New World Order, who were also drafted to the red brand by Flair. Kane remained on Raw for the next several years as he faced the likes of Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Matt Hardy, among others, was unmasked for the first time, set Jim Ross on fire, faced Undertaker at WrestleMania 20, feuded with Gene Snisky, married Lita and got Lita pregnant, in storyline that is. In September 2004 on Raw, Kane accidentally landed on Lita after being hit by a steel chair. As a result, Lita lost her baby. Snisky claimed that it was not his fault that Lita lost her baby and this started a feud between him and Kane. Kane was drafted to Smackdown in 2006 or 2007. Kane still works for WWE, on a part-time basis. Kane became the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee in 2018, an office he still holds today. In June 2020, Kane was hospitalized for a health issue. The Rock was drafted by Mr. McMahon to Smackdown, after which Rock then came out and confronted the WWE Chairman. Rock would remain on Smackdown until early 2003, when he returned to Raw. Triple H was drafted to Smackdown, continuing a feud with Chris Jericho, and faced Undertaker, who was a Raw Superstar at the time, at the King of the Ring for the WWE Undisputed Championship, losing to Undertaker. At first, he was undrafted due to him being the Undisputed Champion, but after losing the title, he would officially the Smackdown roster. Triple H returned to Raw that summer, and remained on Raw for the next six years until he was drafted to Smackdown in 2008, returning to the red brand shortly afterwards in 2009. Triple H became WWE COO in 2011 and founded NXT in 2010. Triple H celebrated his 25th anniversary in WWE in April 2020. Crash Holly was drafted to Raw, returning to Smackdown a few months later. Holly was released from WWE in June 2003. Holly died about six months later in November 2003. He was 32 years old. Holly's kayfabe cousin, Hardcore Holly, was drafted to Smackdown in the first draft. Bubba Ray Dudley was drafted to Raw, while D-Von Dudley was drafted to Smackdown, temporarily ending the Dudley Boyz. The Dudley Boyz reunited in late 2002 into 2003 on Raw. Both Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley were drafted to Smackdown in 2004, turned heels and feuded with Undertaker. Several wrestlers that were drafted or appeared in the first WWE draft in 2002 as wrestlers or WWE co-owners are former World Champions. They are Triple H, Christian, Edge, The Rock, Bubba Ray Dudley, Undertaker, Ric Flair, Vince McMahon Jr, Kane, Rob Van Dam, Diamond Dallas Page, Booker T, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Kevin Nash, Hulk Hogan, Big Show, Mark Henry, Mr. Perfect, Brock Lesnar, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Matt and Jeff Hardy, Farooq, Kurt Angle, and JBL. Almost all of the 2002 WWE draft wrestlers won Tag Team Championships. Some of the 2002 WWE draft have since passed away. They are Chris Benoit, Crash Holly, Test, and Mr. Perfect. Several of the wrestlers who appeared in the first WWE draft in 2002 worked for WCW. They are Edge, Hulk Hogan, Kane, Ric Flair, Booker T, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Undertaker, X-Pac, Kevin Nash, Big Show, Scott Hall, Chuck Palumbo, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, Perry Saturn, Molly Holly, The Hurricane, Big Boss Man, Billy Gunn, Stacy Kiebler, Torrie Wilson, Goldust, Terri Runnels, Shawn Stasiak, Lance Storm, Steven Richards, Raven, Mr. Perfect, Farooq, Billy Kidman, William Regal, Rob Van Dam, Rikishi, Diamond Dallas Page, Arn Anderson, and Hardcore Holly. Ric Flair, Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan, Diamond Dallas Page, Arn Anderson, and Farooq were among the oldest to appear in the first WWE draft as all six were over the age of 45 years old.
Do a bio on Scott Steiner before the big poppa pump n how he changed
I dont get the dislikes on wrestling bios vids
Your videos have great timing
Chris Jericho, a week removed from being WWF Undisputed Champion, was a supplemental lottery pick.
U should do a video on that last Smackdown before the split.
Haven't watched wrestling since 03ish but addicted to this . Gold
Wow, Mr. Perfect got squashed by Taz??? Was that the punishment for the planeride from hell or for him going to WCW?
I remember how much fun this was to create on the games.
Hogan was still in very good shape in 2002
The start of the road to trash. 🗑
I was there! Brock Lesnar ran right beside us on his way to the ring. Still have all the pictures from the event.
Bloody hell this channel is quality.
Another excellent video. I dont watch any wrestling anymore but i was an every weeker between 98-03. This has really taken me back. Thanks for your hard work.
WELL DONE AS ALWAYS! My FAVORITE SERIES in a Long time! Each Episode brings back more and more Memories.. INCREDIBLY WELL DONE AND RESEARCHED!
Can you do a look back at the Kidman hogan feud
I'd love another video in this series, detailing how/when the "Undisputed" Championship became exclusive to one of the brands, leading to the creation of a new World Championship, and the new "general managers" of the two brands. Down the line, hopefully more videos about the end of the original brand extension and the future re-splits (by which time, I'd stopped being an active WWE fan, so I know very little about it - I'd love your rundown of the splits' histories)
Triple H ruins wrestling.
Who on earth is down voting these videos??
Ive always said this; 2002 was WWE's ALLSTAR roster. They finally had WCW top guys wrestling, including Hogan and Flair. Rock and Austin had their final run as active top guys, Smackdown still had the best wrestlers in their prime like Eddie, Benoit, Jericho, Edge, Angle and Rey. Lesnar started his amazing rookie year. You were finally seeing the true potential of Jeff Hardy, RVD, Booker T, Kane and Christian, and got a returning Shawn Michaels...2002 was actually a pretty damn great year.
It was to me the last good WWF year. After that, slowly WWF began to suck
So glad you explained this. I hadn't watched wrestling in years and had no idea what had happened. I was so confused until now. Thanks!
STONE...COLD...IS ON...RAW!!! WOOOOOO!
This was when wrestling started to grow stale to me.
Another great video! Fair play to wrestling bios. you are producing some good content. I personally think the modern day product would benefit from having 2 brands today! Maybe just Raw and NXT drop smack down and 205 spread the best talent between the brands that stay and send the rest to AEW
I stopped watching wrestling at this point, I wasn't a fan of Jericho as the undisputed champion or triple h being a face, it just didn't work for me, it was kind of boring to be honest, it was very predictable triple h was going to win the rumble, plus Austin was being pushed to the side despite the fact he carried the company through the previous year and I don't blame him for walking out.
So Austin winning the rumble in 01 wasnt predictable either?Rock winning the 2000 rumble was the most predictable. Austin wasnt gonna be in the mainevent forever, and him being to the side wasnt gonna last the rest of his career
It was at that Time that i also started to lose interest with wwe
Ima 80s baby and I miss the old style...when stone cold undertaker the rock and some others. When they retired WWF hasn't been the same. Triple H is starting to look like Rick Flair.... it's done... RIP wcw wwf nwo 😥
I feel like the only drafts that were really meaningful were the first three(2002, 2004, 2005) After 2005 I didn't really care for the concept anymore.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& like 4 weeks after this i stopped watching wrestling for 12 years. I think the Brand split is just stupid, just have the 2 shows WWE owns both anyways. If you watch WWE you watched or still watch both shows. There's also very little differance between the 2 shows too.
I liked the draft and this era of WWF in general, but I always thought they could have done more with it.
It really amazed me that Jeff Hardy got the last match The Rock had on Raw 🤯