Is Having the Draft So Soon After WrestleMania a Wise Idea?

The WWE announced in February that the 2009 draft would take place just eight days after WrestleMania, but is that a wise move?

Last year's WWE draft took place on the RAW prior to Night of Champions, which opened up much speculation as to who would win at the pay-per-view; both world championships were being defended between a RAW and SmackDown superstar, so the belief was that one from each would win to keep one championship on each brand.

This did not happen.

As most will remember, Edge and Triple H walked away champions, both of whom were SmackDown superstars. The RAW wrestler CM Punk soon evened things up by cashing in his Money in the Bank contract on Edge, and life in the WWE continued.

Prior to the draft, speculation had been building for almost a month as to who would go where. One Night Stand happened almost three weeks before it, so the wrestling world had plenty of time to analyze every angle.

This year it has been somewhat different.

Unlike last year, the weeks leading up to the draft have not been dominated by talk of who is moving where, because of WrestleMania.

There will undoubtedly be a lot of attention paid to the draft in the coming week, but anything prior to WrestleMania can only be mere speculation.

Vince McMahon will know this, and as we have seen in recent months he has been trying his best to keep the rumor mills from running into overdrive.

The two world championships are both being contested for by wrestlers on different brands at WrestleMania, so unless you know who will win it will be frivolous to attempt to guess who will move where.

Although there is a pay per view soon after to the draft, so it won’t necessarily mean that RAW and SmackDown will come away with a world champion each, from either WrestleMania or the draft.

It does however put an element of predictability on Backlash, because unless a similar thing to last year happens with CM Punk and Edge, it might be more feasible to determine the outcomes.

I can see why Vince McMahon has put the draft so close after WrestleMania this year, but will it play into the hands of the “soothsayers” come Backlash?

I think the answer would be yes, but the pressure he may have released for the draft may be worth it.

It is undoubtedly a big event in the WWE calendar, as it determines the course of the next year, and as such it would have otherwise received huge amounts of attention from the wrestling world.

I think WrestleMania has done an effective job of masking the route the draft will take, and it seems Vince’s smoke and mirrors tactics have done him proud once again.

Do you think placing the draft so soon after WrestleMania is a good idea?