Bianca Belair To SmackDown And The 5 Biggest Mistakes

The 2023 WWE Draft has come to an end, and both Raw and SmackDown look a whole lot different.

Among the biggest changes? Drew McIntyre and Ronda Rousey to Raw and Bobby Lashley and Bianca Belair to SmackDown. Numerous other high-profile stars—such as Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch and Roman Reigns—stayed put. Many of these moves made sense from both a business and booking perspective, but not every move was a logical one.

In fact, much like some NFL teams did in last week’s draft, WWE made some puzzling moves that left fans wondering: What were they thinking?

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The Puzzling NXT Call-Ups

WWE promoted a plethora of NXT stars to the main roster during the draft, including Zoey Stark, Von Wagner, Pretty Deadly and Odyssey Jones.

Some of those moves made sense, but most of them, well, didn’t. Calling up the charisma-void Wagner was a head-scratcher, as was the promotion of NXT Women’s Tag Team Champions Isla Dawn and Alba Fyre and NXT Women’s Champion Indi Hartwell.

Given that so many call-ups were holding NXT titles or simply not ready, this felt like a rush of last-minute decisions made to let these NXT stars sink or swim on the main roster. Judging by their limited success in NXT, virtually all of these stars could struggle to find their footing on Raw or SmackDown.

While Cameron Grimes and Grayson Waller have major star power potential, the other call-ups seemed to be made too early and/or with no long-term plan. Now, they’ve joined a star-studded main roster that may prove difficult to break out on.

Stale Stables Staying Together

Two stables, in particular, come to mind her: Damage CTRL and The OC.

Bayley, of course, has been really held back by her faction with Io Sky and Dakota Kai, which has lost virtually every major match it’s had. AJ Styles’ situation with The OC is a little different. Styles has been out of action for several months, but putting him back with Mia Yim, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson feels like a waste of the tail end of Styles’ career.

Gallows and Anderson have been a huge bust since returning to WWE last year, and Styles shouldn’t be anywhere near them. Overall, the draft felt like the right time to have Styles go solo and Bayley do the same. Instead, these lifeless factions must continue—apparently.

Who Is Raw’s Top Heel?

In an ideal world, Gunther should be the top heel on Raw, but as the Intercontinental Champion and not the world champion, that may not happen.

So, the question is: Who is going to step up as the red brand’s biggest villain? Among the names who could fill that spot are Gunther, Bronson Reed and Finn Balor, but there are cases to be made against all of them. Gunther and Reed have never been pushed to that level while Balor has recently suffered a number of high-profile losses.

Perhaps a Drew McIntyre is on the way, or maybe someone like The Miz is elevated. But with Brock Lesnar and Omos “free agents,” WWE could struggle to find formidable heels for babyfaces like Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.

Overloading The Roster

Perhaps a handful of NXT call-ups were expected, but 13 stars got promoted to Raw or SmackDown. Meanwhile, Wagner and Xyon Quinn are “free agents” who will end up on one show or another.

That’s a lot of call-ups, which makes for a more log-jammed roster. Raw alone now has 23 female stars, which is great in theory. But outside of its biggest stars, how much time does WWE actually dedicate to the women’s division? Whatever it is, it isn’t enough.

Meanwhile, Raw now also has more than 40 male superstars. Even with three hours, WWE hasn’t consistently used all of the red brand’s stars. With WWE expected to be “aggressive” when it comes to cost-cutting, this isn’t a great time to be an expendable star on Raw or SmackDown.

So, perhaps WWE’s thinking is: Let’s see what these stars have, and if they don’t cut it, it’s time to let them go.f

The Women’s Title Mess

So, Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley are the Raw and SmackDown Women’s Champions, respectively. Or is the other way around?

Well, WWE once again decided to have its top two champions switch shows and then simply swap the titles, marking the second time that’s happened. That really hurts the prestige of both champions, which is a shame because Belair has gone a great job as Raw’s champion for more than a year.

The potential solution for this self-created problem is simple, too: WWE needs to rebrand the titles so that they are no longer brand-specific. This would be similar to the Universal and World Heavyweight titles and would avoid a whole lot of confusion and logic gaps.

After all, the women’s title picture is now rather fuzzy, and it is a problem that could have very easily been avoided. Belair on SmackDown isn’t a problem in and of itself, but the way it was done? That was odd, to say the least.