WWE Draft

The WWE Draft is a process used by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE to refresh its rosters between the Raw and SmackDown brands (2002–2011; 2016–present) when a brand extension is in effect. Wrestlers from the promotion's developmental brand NXT (2016–present) are also eligible to be drafted to Raw and SmackDown. Two of WWE's former brands, ECW (2006–2009) and 205 Live (2019), have also taken part in the draft during the promotion's various brand split periods.

The draft was first used in 2002 when the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF) introduced the brand split. It was initially called the WWF Draft Lottery but after the company's renaming from WWF to WWE two months after that original draft, it was rebranded the following year to WWE Draft Lottery (2004–2005), then WWE Brand Extension Draft (2006), and then simply WWE Draft (2007–2011). In 2011, WWE ended the original brand split.^[1]

With SmackDown moving to Tuesdays and to a live broadcast starting July 19, 2016, WWE reintroduced the brand split^[2] with a draft held that same episode.^[3] From 2017 until May 2019, the draft was rebranded as the Superstar Shake-up; instead of a traditional draft, wrestlers were traded or moved between the brands with decisions made behind the scenes.^[4] With SmackDown's move to Friday nights on FOX beginning October 4, 2019, a second draft for the year was scheduled to occur, reverting to its original name ("WWE Draft") and returning to a traditional draft format. A draft was not held in 2022, but it returned in 2023.