My Top 5 Draft Picks

The first thing you have to think about with an exercise like this: What kind of product do you want?

Do you want to err on the side of entertainment? Do you want to present more of a sports product? International? Puro? Strong style/hybrid fighting? Personally, I believe you need a hint of everything to put together a critically acclaimed product in 2018. Gone are the days of tape trading where fans were closed off from certain regions unless they acquired new videos. Everybody is in on the act; even the fans. So I think my promotion would have great athletes to fall back on for sure. But above all that, you need characters. It’s like Chris Jericho said on his Best/Worst SummerSlam preview, “Characters are the only thing that matters.” When you put the two together, though, you could have something special, I.E., Austin-Rock.

Raw Selection: John Cena

The Raw roster is not lacking in talent. What it is missing is the bonafide superstar that can cater to every sect of wrestling. Seth Rollins? One of the top two workers in WWE, but his character is still atoning for a completely mistimed face turn. Dean Ambrose? Probably the closest thing to what I’m looking for, but The Shield reunion has completely halted the momentum he gained when he returned less than a month ago. Roman Reigns? Call it bad booking, bad writing or anything you want, but Reigns fails to connect with the audience in a way few main eventers ever have. Braun Strowman? He may be the result of a Hulk Hogan-Big Show fusion dance, but unlike Vince McMahon, I’m not necessarily married to the idea that size is a requirement to sell.

I need my top guy to carry the show, both in the ring and on the microphone. John Cena may be a man without a show, but he’s appeared on Raw more than SmackDown as of late and even at 41 years old, checks every box for a main event guy. Not to mention he seems more confident on the mic than ever before. Add the fact that he’s shredded, growing his hair out a bit AND has a new finishing move in the works. Brock Lesnar wouldn’t even be a question given financials and his willingness to kind of dictate his own business. But where Brock is a mercenary, Cena is a company man.

SmackDown Selection: AJ Styles

As much talent as SmackDown has, this selection came down to two individuals: AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. Both wrestlers have a history with Cena, who I’ve already tapped to be my franchise player. Joe trained with Cena under Rick Bassman at UPW in SoCal. Styles, meanwhile, was sometimes looked at as the Cena parallel in TNA, and when they finally collided in WWE, the matches did not disappoint. My greatest critique of that feud was that it did not main event WrestleMania, and I think that was the year of Roman Reigns and The Undertaker (blegh).

Ultimately, you need adversaries for your top guy, feuds that you can revisit over time and tell a story with, as opposed to ones you think the fans are forgetting about, but don’t, thus putting the egg on the company’s face as Kevin Dunn and WWE do on a week-to-week basis. The problem with SmackDown’s roster is that there is not a lot of youth. I can’t really make an ultra-long-term investment, and that could especially hurt having already picked John Cena at age 41. Meanwhile, AJ Styles is also 41. Samoa Joe is 39. Shinsuke Nakamura? 38. Randy Orton? 38. Jeff Hardy? 40. Logically, the Miz could make a lot of sense, but I need the technician with this pick so I can save the mega heel for my third pick in NXT. Thus, I plan on running Cena vs. Styles as long as it sells or as long as I can before both men’s bodies break down.

NXT Selection: Tommaso Ciampa

Adam Cole, Ricochet, Alastair Black and Johnny Gargano all come to mind immediately. But while I may be partial, I’m going with Tommaso Ciampa for many of the reasons I mentioned in my opening soliloquy. I need characters, and I need heels to challenge my top guys. Cena is not turning anytime soon. Styles can really go either way as the Sting of my promotion. Tommaso Ciampa, however, is a heel and will remain a heel for as long as those guys are alive and kicking.

My fandom of Ciampa goes back to his time in RoH. I saw a picture of him on the company’s website and thought he looked twice his age with the bleached hair and beard. Then I watched him in the ring and my biggest takeaway was this: He’s only 5-11? Ciampa works a style that makes him seem much bigger than he is, like he could almost be someone closer to Chris Masters’ size than his billed height. Project Ciampa is a sick finisher, too, but what hooked me was a promo he cut on Sami Callihan six years ago that details his story.

I’m not going to go on a diatribe on the adversity this guy faced because you can find all of that online, but I will say when El Generico, Kevin Steen and others were leaving RoH for WWE, I expected Ciampa to be a prime candidate to take a main event spot, and it just never came to fruition. I blame Ring of Honor for that, because they let this guy go to NXT where he got over in a tag team, then got over as a main event player, and not just any main event player, mind you. He’s the NXT Champion on the most stacked roster in all of professional wrestling, and he earned it, being the stinking, son of a bitch, heel he is. SquaredCircle busts a nut to his tweets on a day-to-day basis, and I do hate that. You like the guy? Follow him on Twitter. But can you imagine a Cena-Ciampa feud, given the face/heel dynamic and their similar styles? It’s a license to print money. And when Cena and Styles one day retire, I will turn Ciampa face and make him the face of the company because he’s just that good.

Impact/MLW Selection: Tessa Blanchard

You have to give it up to Impact for rebuilding its image and to MLW for recreating its own out of thin air. Earlier, I mentioned that if you want to have a successful wrestling company, you need to appeal to all audiences, and that includes women’s wrestling. Unlike WWE, I’m not going to claim it’s good just because it fits the marketing agenda to do so. I’m going to makedamnsure that the women’s wrestling on my show can be critically acclaimed, putting the women in a position to succeed and become larger-than-life superstars just like the men. My product is going to show, not tell, and it starts with the talent.

I’ve exhausted my WWE draft picks, but there’s still plenty of great female talent out there to build around. Impact recently invested in Tessa Blanchard, and if I’m building a wrestling show from the ground up, so am I. Tessa is a weight room warrior, and she is thiccccccc (I follow her on Instagram). Moreover, she is beautiful, strong, has a noticeable pedigree for this line of work, is improving all the time and has perhaps a better understanding of her character than any woman in wrestling not named Su Yung or Alexa Bliss. She can be as menacing as she is dashing, and while I can’t remember where on the site I said it, I told everyone not to be surprised if following her recent two-year deal that she gets fast-tracked to the belt. Now, she does wrestle men on the independents and I have a real distaste for the carny booking that is men vs. women in sim fights, but in Tessa, I’m also making an investment in youth. If you can believe it, she’s only 23, and thus is far and away the youngest member on my roster.

NJPW/RoH Selection: Zack Sabre Jr.

First, a quick aside and maybe even a hot take: The Ring of Honor product is ice cold, and the company owes it to the New Japan partnership. They have become too dependent on NJPW talent to carry the show. Any buzz RoH has drawn recently is due to the momentum Cody, Marty Scurrl and The Young Bucks have generated with ALL IN. That’s not to take away the achievement, but I’m quick to clarify this to people as Ring of Honor hasn’t really had a homegrown star since Dalton Castle. I can’t even tell you who the RoH champion is these days, though given recent events it does seem like Jeff Cobb, while not homegrown, could give RoH a different face to pair up against guys like Lethal and the Briscoes. I just needed to get that off my chest, and will take on all comers on the issue (looking at you, Steven).

As far as my final draft pick goes, Kenny Omega would be an easy choice, but for variance sake, I’d be concerned about his ability to connect to a western audience (I know he can with ease). Okada? Same thing? Naito? Same thing. Tanahashi? I’ve got enough old guys. Suzuki? WAY too old. Jay White? Too erratic. Juice? Too much profanity. Page? Lots of potential, but he did sell the dick spot for Joey Ryan. Ibushi? Probably wouldn’t want to commit to working in the states exclusively.

Truth is, these are all phenomenal talents, but I have this existential need to be different. Hiroshi Tanahashi would be my slam dunk draft pick, but he is out indefinitely with a neck injury. That brings me to the next name on the list, Zack Sabre Jr. Now, I did say I believe characters are prudent in wrestling, and of all the previously mentioned names, character and mic skills are not ZSJ’s strong suit. Where he shines is his uniqueness. A lot of people will look at his wiry build like it’s a bad thing, but I see a completely unique character in wrestling, and with proper writing and storytelling, we can make something of ZSJ yet (first thing I’d do is explain in storyline who Zack Sabre Sr. is LOL). From a technical standpoint, he’s done all he can do to prove himself. I’d love to see him work a Styles or Cena as a cold, calculated heel, plus his English roots could provide a great chance for us tap into that (English accent) U.K. Market.