On the 2010 Draft and the Creative Black Hole that is now WWE

I'm incredibly surprised that the second generation of viewers of professional wrestling on cable TV still divide their impressions of wrestling into a tired, two-step formulation: either side of the Attitude era. To my mind, just as important to the evolution of the product was Vince McMahon's famous "shake things up" speech on MNR with the roster surrounding the ring. Taking this speech to be as relevant as I insist it is would split the last fifteen years into not two but four distinct phases: the pre-Attitude era, the Attitude era, the post-Invasion era and the post-annual Draft era.

The need for VKM's shake up were obvious: the brand split put immense amounts of pressure on the shrinking upper card that had notably lost Austin (to injury) and The Rock (to Hollywood) and there were fears that the mid-card wasn't going to generate enough interesting feuds or prepare enough talent for the upper card if everyone had to swim for survival and consequently suffocated in the four hours of TV time.

But what have we come to in a few short years? The only big movers in the 2010 Draft were Edge, Jericho and Morrison, who now join Orton, Batista, Sheamus, Hunter and, of course, Cena on an increasingly overpopulated upper card on MNR. It means, in all probability, whichever way you look at it, that a mid-card exile is in store for the majority of these eight because it hardly seems credible or likely that more than three of them will populate the title picture at any given time, especially now, since Swagger cashed in his title shot and is now conveniently on SD!

That leaves me to contemplate the immediate future of SD! which will now most likely feature the two highest (the quality of talent going the other way forces the use of a comparative) profile Draft picks: Kingston and Christian. That appears horribly desperate, unless they have some mega plan in mind, such as (and I know I'm dreaming here) one final, well-overdue world title assault by either Kane or Big Show. I doubt they do. In which case, I'd like someone to show me how the business end of this now evidently little league show, for the foreseeable future at least, is going to amount to anything more than "here you go, Jack! Beat this guy!"

The one game-changer I've left out of this depressingly bleak forecast is The Undertaker and my reason for doing so is simple: he's not going to move from Friday nights anytime soon, he's not going to be at too many Friday nights either and when he next picks a fight with someone (presumably for Summerslam), I doubt it's going to be with Swagger/whoever else is holding the gold because I have enough faith that he's going to use the rest of his time at the top to build rather than destroy. And hey, I've marked out for him my whole life but his (count them) four runs with the Big Gold Belt since his return at Wrestlemania XX have made even me a little apologetic. And to think that this brand split only happened because they couldn't find a guy to do both shows every week as champion following Big Evil's phenomenal heel run back in '01. Ironic, that.

So, we're back where we started, staring at the unbelievable but very real prospect of Orton and Edge fighting over...nothing. Don't shout it out just yet, but it may well be time for some title unifications.

(c) Eashan Ghosh, 2010.