The draft was originally designed when the brand extension took place. It was an opportunity to capitalise on the fact they were treating the two shows, Raw and SmackDown, as different entities. This was due to the recent influx of talent caused by the acquisition of all its competition at the time—WCW and ECW.
Each show took turns in deciding which superstar would appear exclusively on which brand. The first was in 2002 and it became an annual event from 2004, which coincidentally, is not long after the separate brands also hosted all pay-per-views barring the big four exclusively, dividing them up in the year.
So, the d...
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