More Backstage News on WWE’s 2021 Draft

As noted before, WWE recently held their annual WWE Draft specials over the course of this past week’s episodes of RAW, RAW Talk, Friday Night SmackDown, and Talking Smack.

In regards to Night Two of WWE’s Draft, PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that WWE officials had been very secretive over their draft plans and script for Monday’s episode of RAW. Similar to this past Friday’s Night 1 SmackDown show, many talent were left completely in the dark on Monday at least as late as the time of his report of around 1:30PM EST.

In regards to this past Friday’s Night One of WWE’s Draft, Johnson reported that many of the talents who were announced to be shifting brands during that night’s episode of Talking Smack had also been left in the dark. Several talent spoken to stated that they only learned of their situation after the news of their draft picks hit social media. One source spoken to within the company reportedly defended the company’s decision to keep their talent in the dark by noting that these moves will not take effect for several weeks and it not being the case of someone “found out on Saturday they were now traveling to Raw at the last second.”

Johnson also reported that WWE’s original plan for the first pick of their RAW brand on Night 1 was for Bobby Lashley to be person selected and Big E to be selected during this past Monday’s RAW show. Johnson reported that his sources stated that the idea was to create some suspense for viewers to see which brand Big E would have been drafted to after New Day’s Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods were drafted to SmackDown. Johnson reported that those plans were dropped over the course of this past Friday with Big E replacing Lashley as RAW’s top draft pick.

Besides NXT talents Aaliyah, Ridge Holland, and Xia Li, the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reported that Harry Smith was also in attendance backstage during this past Friday’s SmackDown show.