It’s the start of a new month and the second part of WWE’s latest attempt at a brand split with this year’s WWE Draft. The WWE Raw tonight is the last before Backlash and such, they come to us live from the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. This is a rather unique venue for high-end wrestling in general as it’s not the typical basketball court normally used. It’s actually a multipurpose venue that is primarily used for rodeo shows. Which, makes it rather similar to some venues used in Mexico for wrestling. Those are primarily bullriding and/or bullfighting venues.
WWE’s debut in the venue was originally scheduled for March 23, 2020. But was cancelled as it was the second week after the COVID-19 Pandemic started in the United States. The company finally debuted for Money In The Bank a year later. The show where The Usos defeated Rey & Dominik Mysterio to win the Smackdown Tag Team Championships which kicked off their year-plus-long reign where they would unify both sets of titles and ended at WrestleMania this year.
Read More: WWE Draft Pool and Results: SmackDown Results, Night One (4/28/23)
WWE Raw Tonight Full Card
Brock’s Back Again
After seeing the apparent debut of “The Brockertaker” a few weeks ago, Brock Lesnar sporting a peculiar black trench coat as he taunted Cody Rhodes. On the same show, Trish Stratus sported a very similar attire, oddly enough. What will he do? Will he finally explain WHY he attacked Cody Rhodes so brutally the night after WrestleMania and feigned to be his buddy for a tag team match? That seems to have been forgotten after backlash at the original explanation the commentators mentioned being that “he wasn’t pleased opening WrestleMania”. Either all, will ‘The American Nightmare’ look to retaliate?
The Final Push To Backlash
While SmackDown seems to be pushed as the big closing show prior to Backlash, as it isn’t part of the WWE Draft and also happens to be the very first weekly TV show from WWE to take place from Puerto Rico, there’s still plenty to push on Raw. It’s a three-hour show after all. Not to mention some matches can be fleshed out more, while others could be announced. As things stand, nothing has been announced between Rey Mysterio and his son Dominik. This is very peculiar as they’ve been the main focus of Raw since WrestleMania. Rey is also very popular in Puerto Rico, so it would be very strange not to have him on the card. Especially adding how this new LWO merchandise has been selling so well.
The Draft Continues
On Smackdown, the likes of Roman Reigns, Bianca Belair, Solo Sikoa, the Street Profits and others were matched to the blue brand while Becky Lynch, Cody Rhodes and all of Imperium along with others are now a part of Raw. Who goes where today? A new set of people are slated to be chosen from. Here they are:
- Akira Tozawa
- Alpha Academy (Otis & Chad Gable)
- Angel Garza & Humberto Carrillo
- Asuka
- United States Champion Austin Theory
- Baron Corbin
- Braun Strowman & Ricochet
- Brock Lesnar
- Bronson Reed
- Cedric Alexander & Shelton Benjamin
- Charlotte Flair
- Dana Brooke
- Elias
- Emma
- Johnny Gargano
- Judgment Day (Finn Bálor, Damian Priest & Dominik Mysterio)
- Karrion Kross & Scarlett
- Unified WWE Tag Team Champions Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn
- LA Knight
- WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez
- Nikki Cross
- Piper Niven
- Rhea Ripley
- Rick Boogs
- Riddick Moss
- Ronda Rousey & Shayna Baszler
- Seth Rollins
- Shotzi
- Tamina
- Tegan Nox
- The Brawling Brutes (Sheamus, Ridge Holland & Butch)
- The LWO (Rey Mysterio, Santos Escobar, Cruz Del Toro, Joaquin Wilde & Zelina Vega)
- The New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods)
- The Usos (Jimmy & Jey Uso)
- Trish Stratus
- Xia Li
- Select NXT Superstars
Here’s how the rosters currently look following SmackDown and its supplemental draft on Saturday morning.
Raw:
- Apollo Crews
- Becky Lynch
- Candice LeRae
- Chelsea Green & Sonya Deville
- Cody Rhodes
- Dexter Lumis
- Drew McIntyre
- Imperium (Intercontinental Champion Gunther, Giovanni Vinci & Ludwig Kaiser)
- NXT Women’s Champion Indi Hartwell
- JD McDonagh
- Matt Riddle
- Maximum Male Models (Maxxine Dupri, Mace & Mansoor)
- The Miz
- Natalya
- The Viking Raiders (Erik, Ivar & Valhalla)
- Zoey Stark
SmackDown:
- WWE Raw Women’s Champion Bianca Belair
- NXT Women’s Tag Team Champions Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn
- The Bloodline (Unified Universal WWE Champion Roman Reigns, Solo Sikoa & Paul Heyman)
- Bobby Lashley
- Damage CTRL (Bayley, Iyo Sky & Dakota Kai)
- Hit Row (Ashante Adonis, Top Dolla & B Fab)
- Lacey Evans
- The OC (AJ Styles, Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows & Michin)
The likes of Omos (with MVP), Dolph Ziggler, Mustafa Ali and Von Wagner remain free agents to be chosen later by the brands. Though MVP and Omos are pushing the idea of appearing on both shows.
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on the WWE Draft results and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the WWE Network and Peacock.
