There was a draft on Raw Monday, wasn't there? You sure wouldn't have known it by watching Smackdown Friday night.
Perhaps I missed the part where it was announced that the new rosters don't take effect until next week, because Raw mainstays Randy Orton, Batista and Ted DiBiase were on the show, as were several wrestlers who had been drafted to Raw – Triple H, The Big Show, Maryse, MVP and Matt Hardy.
Smackdown's top heel, Edge, was nowhere to be found, however. Neither were newly acquired Smackdown performers Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, CM Punk, Mike Knox and Alicia Fox.
I'll say it again: If wrestlers are permitted to appear on any show they want, what's the point of having a draft? Instead of WWE keeping up the pretense of three separate brands, I think it should combine the Raw and Smackdown rosters into one (like it was before 2002) and keep ECW as a distinctive brand featuring younger talent with some veterans sprinkled in.
Other thoughts on Friday night's show:
The dramatic music playing in the background during the verbal confrontation between Triple H and Orton was corny and distracting. I'm all for trying something new, but I just don't think it works. …
The Undertaker and Shelton Benjamin had another good match together. It's the third time they have wrestled each other in the past three months, and once again Benjamin looked good in defeat. I'm curious to see if Benjamin's strong showings against The Undertaker lead to more of a push for him. …
Another guy who looked good while losing was Ted DiBiase Jr., who put over Batista in a decent main event. …
The Big Show-Jeff Hardy match was dragging until Matt Hardy showed up. The finishing sequence was good and Matt generated a lot of heat for the post-match attack on his brother. …
Dolph Ziggler pinning MVP was a surprise. I see something in Ziggler and would like for him to get a push, but WWE needs to limit the number of jobs that MVP does. His character was weakened by the long losing streak and he needs to get on a serious roll for fans to view him as anything more than a mid-carder. …
Another result that I had mixed emotions about was John Morrison's victory over R-Truth. Morrison has major star potential and definitely shouldn't lose his first match since the draft, but I don't want to see R-Truth end up in the role of jobber to the stars. …
It wasn't perfect, but I enjoyed the Gail Kim-Maryse match. I'm not too impressed with Kim's finisher, though. …
The Great Khali attempting to put a liplock on Santina Marella figures to be entertaining, but the standard Khaki Kiss Cam segments ran their course a while ago