The 2024 WWE Draft is technically the first under Paul "Triple H" Levesque since Vince McMahon was back in the creative fold for last year's, and Night 1 didn't exactly send the message that much will be changing with the rosters even in the "new era." Personally, I enjoyed it for what it was as I always do, but I can't dispute the fact that it was fairly uneventful in terms of the moves that were made.
Here's why I didn't have an issue with that, though: The rosters as they are at the moment shouldn't be drastically altered because of the existing stories that still need to play out. We'll see what happens on Night 2 and I'd surely hope there are more meaningful moves made then, but a majority of the Superstars who should be switching shows aren't in the main event scene. Doing trades between the general managers instead of a formal draft would've made more sense in this case. As far as the execution of the Draft itself this year, it was a definite improvement over past years. It was wise to announce the eligible pools for each night ahead of time, it always bothered me that they rarely did that. More involvement from the GMs would be nice, as well as clarification for NXT picks/call-ups, but above all else, the biggest positive was exempting the current champions (not including the WWE Women's Tag Team Champions who float between brands). Keeping them where they are is part of why it didn't feel like there was anything super shocking on Night 1, but that's fine by me. They need to keep that rule for future installments. Here's my round-by-round breakdown of Night 1 of the 2024 WWE Draft and my analysis of each pick.
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Trent Beretta def. Chuck Taylor in a Parking Lot FightI have no issue with AEW rushing into this so soon after Taylor rejected joining Beretta in his feud with Orange Cassidy because it's clear Beretta vs. Cassidy is what they're building to, probably at Double or Nothing. It was also fitting that they had their Parking Lot Fight at Daily's Place because of their past Parking Lot Fights with Santana and Ortiz as well as Blackpool Combat Club (that was at Daily's Place, wasn't it?). This was a fun brawl that didn't last longer than it needed to. In addition to his win, Beretta attacking Taylor afterward only puts more heat on him.
Claudio Castagnoli Accepted AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland's AEW World Championship Open ChallengeThis is how Dynamite should have opened on Wednesday, but reportedly, AEW wanted to save Strickland's celebration for the start of Collision because they knew it'd have a big lead-in from the NBA game that preceded it. Okay, whatever. This didn't feel as special as it should have because Castagnoli quickly interrupted him, but at least they effectively set up the night's championship main event.
Jakara Jackson def. Arianna GraceThis was a weird matchup considering both women are heels. Jakara isn't doing anything important in The Meta-Four at the moment while Grace is in the midst of a storyline with Gigi Dolin, so why would Jakara win? That was definitely a questionable outcome. Not having Dolin out there was also illogical with Dolin in the process of giving her a total makeover (or at least attempting to). Worst of all, the match itself wasn't very good and the crowd didn't care.
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