Shane McMahon: Draft Was Stacked Against Smackdown

Shane McMahon went on record as saying “the deck was stacked” against the Smackdown brand during the WWE roster draft last month.

McMahon discussed the draft recently while appearing on the Cheap Heat podcast.

Although Smackdown has the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion Dean Ambrose, as well as John Cena and AJ Styles, the other brand — Raw — got to draft three individuals for every two Smackdown drafted. This was set up because Raw is an hour longer than Smackdown.

McMahon had the following to say regarding the draft:

“Distinctly different? Absolutely correct. Second or on par? Absolutely not. There is a lot of personal pride and you’re already starting to see, as we kinda say internally, Team Blue, which I’m proud to be a part of, we’re out to win. We want a better show, we want better creative, we want better talent, we want better quality matches and that’s exactly what we’re trying to pull off each week. It’s a big ship to turn but I feel we’re, each and every week… we’re not going to do a great job every week, even though we try, but we are definitely changing the direction of where Smackdown goes, specifically. And because of what we’re doing Team Red or Raw is saying ‘oh, look what they’re doing.’ Now, again, there’s a lot of personal pride in it in saying ‘good luck, you guys keep going.’ The deck was stacked and that’s fine with Daniel and I. Raw got an immense amount of picks. We definitely wanted some of the talent to come over to Smackdown but we have a great crew and we’re trying to develop more talent you’ll start to see — we can talk about that a little bit later — coming into Smackdown. But more importantly utilizing what you have. We have an immense amount of great guys and girls that have never, to your point earlier, gotten the opportunity to let it out there. That’s what we’re all about.”

Earlier this year, McMahon made his return to WWE and WWE television after an absence of about seven years. After facing The Undertaker at WrestleMania 32 in Hell In A Cell for the right to take control of Raw, he still got the opportunity to run Raw on a few instances even though he lost the match. McMahon was named the Commissioner of Smackdown when WWE started setting the scene for its latest roster split.