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WWE News
WWE News: First Diva to be Drafted, plus potential breakout star from ECW shifted to Smackdown (w/Keller's Analysis) Jun 25, 2008 - 1:14:12 PM
The 23rd and 24th picks in WWE's 2008 Draft are Maria from Raw to Smackdown and Shelton Benjamin from ECW to Smackdown.
Keller's Analysis: A big part of the draft isn't just the obvious - give fans who watch one show or another a new influx of talent to watch on their favorite show and also produce fresh match-ups for wrestlers. Another part of the draft is to give WWE's brand-specific creative teams a chance to try to get more out of a wrestler than a previous writing team did. In the case of Shelton Benjamin, hopefully Michael Hayes and his Smackdown assistants have ambitious plans for him. He remains one of those fence-riding potential breakout stars who seems to be both "held back" by management and stopping just short of forcing their hand to push him. He's gifted athletically, and on the mic he's passable, but there's some intangible that's missing that will move him into a "must push" zone. Hopefully WWE's Smackdown team finds a way to make the most out of Shelton as he can be a real valuable player for the next five years if they do. Maria shifting to Smackdown doesn't mean much on air other than WWE's hope that her fans follow her to Smackdown if they're not regular viewers. For her, it just puts her in a different traveling group also.
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