WWE Announces Schedule, TV Info for 2021 SmackDown, Raw Drafts

The rosters for Raw and SmackDown will look a little different by Halloween.

WWE announced Monday a two-night draft is right around the corner. The event will begin Oct. 1 on SmackDown and conclude Oct. 4 on Raw, with details on the draft structure itself likely forthcoming.

The timing of the 2021 draft lines up with the dates of the last two installments.

It will also come after Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men Pro Wrestling Podcast (via Wrestling Inc's Marc Middleton) reported officials at NBCUniversal and USA Network were unhappy with what they saw as a roster imbalance.

Brock Lesnar and Becky Lynch, two of WWE's biggest stars, returned at SummerSlam and aligned with SmackDown. They had previously been aligned with Raw before their extended breaks from programming.

WWE reportedly responded to the concerns by laying out its plans for the upcoming draft.

Lesnar appears to be on a collision course with Roman Reigns, so he's presumably either staying on SmackDown or coming to Raw alongside the WWE universal champion. Lynch, meanwhile, is the SmackDown women's champion, which would seemingly leave her off-limits in any draft scenario.

Extreme Rules on Sept. 26 is the last pay-per-view before the draft, and the outcome of the card could foreshadow how the draft unfolds. Reigns and Lynch and both scheduled to defend their title belts.

The draft itself should subsequently lay the groundwork for WrestleMania 38 in April 2022.