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5:30 p.m. The 2009 WWE Draft is officially over. A total of 36 picks were made over the course of seven hours (three hours on Raw and four hours online for the Supplemental Draft) and the pieces of the puzzle are scattered everywhere.
Here's an example of the drama. WWE broke up Cryme Tyme at 11:10 a.m. today, then re-united them at 2:00 p.m. The Unified tag champs, Carlito & Primo, were broken up at 11:30, then re-united two hours later.
Associations were ended, such as Finlay & Hornswoggle and William Regal & Layla. Only a few picks really mattered in today's context, but some could play out effectively down the road. For instance, Hurricane Helms could be re-juvenated on ECW and the pieces of the puzzle are in place for a New Hart Foundation on ECW.
The top names who moved in the Supplemental Draft were Mr. Kennedy and John Morrison. Kennedy is back on Raw, where MVP just re-located to. If Kennedy returns to WWE healthy, he could pick up another program against MVP.
John Morrison moving to Smackdown has a world of potential. A program against Rey Mysterio for the IC Title could carry the brand for several months. I like building up Morrison toward a WrestleMania 26 match against The Undertaker, but I'm getting way ahead of myself 350 days away.
We'll see how the pieces begin to fit together over the next few weeks, so it's difficult to evaluate the success/failure of the Supplemental Draft until WWE takes action
-- Hulk Hogan opened his mouth about knowing what O.J. Simpson must have felt like, suggesting (a) Simpson murdered his family and (b) Hogan has thought about murdering his ex-wife and her under-20-year-old beau. New York Post ran the story and I'll have a report online this evening.
-- Jeff Jarrett was interviewed in Newsday by Alfonso Castillo. Jarrett went in-depth into his relationship with Vince McMahon, TNA's ratings, and trying to serve several different masters with their TNA Impact programming. Very candid interview from Jeff, who is now concerned about his legacy in the wrestling business and produced a DVD to provide his perspective on that topic.
***
10:45 a.m. I'm currently sitting in the jury duty holding room blogging and waiting for the WWE Draft to start. Apparently I'm in the last potential group or not being picked for anything this morning.
The district clerk cut a nice promo thanking everyone for showing up. He was a nice fellow in his mid-30s, but would make a great heel manager with his soft talk and motivational-speaker-type tone to warm our hearts. Trying not to sound jaded here, but I kept thinking the guy could be a heat-magnet for today's wrestling fans who simply don't want to be encouraged or given soft talks.
As of right now, I'll be covering WWE's supplemental draft from the jury holding area barring a call to be on a jury panel. We'll see how this goes as the legal system takes it course.
-- We ran a poll this morning on who would most benefit from ending The Undertaker's undefeated streak at WrestleMania among the younger stars on the roster.
The thought came to me for the poll idea because WWE's roster seems to be in limbo. There's a group of older veterans who are on the way out of wrestling and a group of younger wrestlers who are on the verge of becoming stars. Randy Orton and John Cena fall in-between, but Torch readers aren't strongly behind them as candidates to eventually break Taker's streak.
Right now, Torch readers have voted 38 percent in favor of no one on the current WWE roster being qualified to break the streak based on the options we listed. I wanted the criteria to be younger wrestlers because I simply don't think a tenured star like Triple H would benefit from ending the streak. I was looking for a younger star who could get three-to-five years of mileage out of the victory.
Right now, John Morrison is leading the votes when removing the "no one qualifies" option. Morrison has all the physical tools to become the next Shawn Michaels. The only thing holding him back is people perceiving that he has a "too-laid-back, whatevs" attitude.
It was inevitable WWE would split up Miz and Morrison, and now Morrison has an opportunity to become break-out singles star. He started on the right foot with a four-star-quality match against Evan Bourne on last night's ECW TV.
My pick is Jack Swagger, who is just behind Morrison in the Torch voting. Perhaps the issue will be Taker retiring before Swagger is ready for the responsibility of taking the Streak, but Swagger proved himself on the big stage with his match against John Cena on Monday night.
When next year's Draft rolls around, Swagger could be prime for a jump to Raw or Smackdown to begin a program that would set him up for Taker at WrestleMania 27. That is, if Swagger maintains his current pace, Taker is still wrestling, and all other variables hold true.
The other top picks from Torch readers are Randy Orton and C.M. Punk. I think the psychology behind Orton not being a top pick is that he already lost to Taker at WrestleMania 21. He is much-improved since then, especially in the TV character and out-of-the-rng discipline departments, so it will be interesting to see if WWE builds to a second match against Taker at WrestleMania.
Punk is interesting because he's gone through some ups-and-downs on WWE TV since winning the World Hvt. Title after last year's Draft. WWE hasn't given him that one significant push just yet, as his World Title reign was treated like a fluke, but he could still be a major star for the company.
A strong program on Smackdown with WWE really getting behind him, including a possible heel turn, could lead to a match against Taker at WM26. Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.
