Since WWE won’t end its brand split despite many fans and observers wishing it would (ahem), the WWE Draft has become a time-honored tradition, fun in its potential to shake up potential matchups and in its pseudo-proximity to drafts in unscripted sports.
In recent years, the WWE Draft has become a fall event, taking place in October, but that may not be the case this year.
After originally hearing from its sources that the draft might take place shortly after the upcoming Clash at the Castle event in September, Fightful Select is now reporting that it’s now unlikely that’s the case. The next draft might not take place until spring of 2023, after WWE’s biggest show of the year.
USA Network sources have told talent that the Draft isn’t happening in the immediate future, have outright stated to that after WrestleMania is a likelier landing spot.
On one hand holding the WWE Draft soon would make sense due to all the changes that have taken place since Paul Levesque (a.k.a. Triple H) has taken over as head of creative. New and returning faces have been commonplace over the past few weeks, and a draft would allow them to be formally distributed between Raw and SmackDown.
That said, prior to 2019, the WWE Draft was routinely shortly after WrestleMania — from 2009 to 2019, it was always in April, except for 2016. Since WrestleMania is the de facto end of a year’s worth of WWE programming and the Raw the next night the start of a new one, holding the draft a week or two after that was logical to reshuffle the deck a bit and help new narratives have a common starting point.
In other words, an April 2023 date for the WWE Draft would be throwing it back to something that’s worked in the past. It’s something to absolutely keep an eye out for when WrestleMania 39 arrives next spring.