{"id":23474,"date":"2016-06-20T10:28:25","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T15:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=23474"},"modified":"2016-06-20T14:36:59","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T19:36:59","slug":"wwe-announces-live-draft-kick-off-live-smackdown-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/06\/20\/wwe-announces-live-draft-kick-off-live-smackdown-era\/","title":{"rendered":"WWE announces Live Draft to kick off Live Smackdown Era"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-2276662835\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>WWE will be holding the Draft on the first live Smackdown set for Tuesday, July 19 on USA Network, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wwe.com\/shows\/smackdown\/article\/live-draft-smackdown-premiere?sf29076738=1\" target=\"_blank\">WWE announced Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>WWE is advertising the Draft &#8220;conducted by respective General Managers,&#8221; who have not been named yet for Raw and Smackdown.<\/p>\n<p>The GMs will &#8220;select which Superstars will compete exclusively on Monday Night Raw or Smackdown.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>WWE is hyping\u00a0the two rosters &#8220;competing with each other for television ratings, live events, and pay-per-views&#8221; going back-to-back with live programming on Monday and Tuesday nights.<\/p>\n<p>WWE did not outright say that both brands will have their own PPVs, but the implications is they will run separate tours and PPVs on WWE Network.<\/p>\n<p>WWE also did not say whether separate titles will be created for the two brands, which will likely be addressed in storyline context.<\/p>\n<p>The Draft comes the week of WWE&#8217;s next PPV, Battleground, which takes place July 24. It remains to be seen\u00a0if Battleground is affected based on the Draft happening before the PPV.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Where will AJ Styles end up? The world will find out live July 19th on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Smackdown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Smackdown<\/a>. I can tell you one thing&#8230;it&#39;s my time. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/PhenomenalOne?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#PhenomenalOne<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; AJ Styles (@AJStylesOrg) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AJStylesOrg\/status\/744976461686136832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 20, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-1963163102\"><div id=\"pwtor-3884086452\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>WWE will be holding the Draft on the first live Smackdown set for Tuesday, July 19 on USA Network, WWE announced Monday. WWE is advertising the Draft &#8220;conducted by respective General Managers,&#8221; who have not <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/06\/20\/wwe-announces-live-draft-kick-off-live-smackdown-era\/\" title=\"WWE announces Live Draft to kick off Live Smackdown Era\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,3],"tags":[1394,96,2872,71,112,117],"class_list":["post-23474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlightarticles","category-news_wwe","tag-live-smackdown","tag-raw","tag-smackdown-live","tag-wwe","tag-wwe-raw","tag-wwe-smackdown"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2016\/06\/WWEDraftlogo.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23474"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23499,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23474\/revisions\/23499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}