WWE Draft: Every No. 1 Pick in Company History

The WWE Draft will return on this week’s Friday Night SmackDown, and the format will once again match the previous two installments. Every active wrestler will be available for selection, Monday Night Raw gets three picks for every two selections SmackDown makes, tag teams and factions can either be chosen as a single pick or split up and every wrestler that is not selected after the two-day Draft (and the two follow-up supplemental drafts) will be considered free agents. The Draft was first introduced as part of the WWE Brand Split back in 2002 and between its format changes and the erasure and reintroduction of the split the Draft has taken on various formats and names in the 19 years since. 

But one fairly consistent factor is the bragging rights that surround the No. 1 overall pick, and below you can see the first list of every wrestler who was selected first in a given Draft. Who do you think will be the No. 1 pick this year? Let us know down in the comments! 

The Rock (2002)

The big storyline surrounding the initial draft was that Vince McMahon had control over SmackDown while Ric Flair ran Raw, and the two sides tried to outdo each other with each pick. McMahon went first and chose The Rock, while Flair selected The Undertaker. 

Renee Dupree (2004)

The Draft was drastically changed after the idea was first introduced. Two years later general managers Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman drew wrestlers’ names at random as part of a lottery. SmackDown had the first pick in 2004 and Renee Dupree, a member of La Resistance at the time, was chosen.

John Cena (2005, 2011)

Fresh off winning his first of 16 world championships, John Cena was brought over to Monday Night Raw as the first overall pick in the 2005 Draft. Six years later he was randomly selected to go to SmackDown at the start of the Draft, but when the Red Brand earned the final pick of the event he was selected to stay on Raw. 

The Great Khali (2007)

After the 2006 Draft was tweaked to send two big stars from Raw and SmackDown to the revived ECW (Rob Van Dam and Kurt Angle), the 2007 Draft saw all three brands fighting for picks in matches. SmackDown won the first pick when Edge beat John Cena, resulting in The Great Khali getting randomly selected to head to The Blue Brand. The giant would go on to win the World Heavyweight Championship a month later.

Rey Mysterio (2008)

Triple H defeated Mark Henry to earn Raw the first pick in 2008, resulting in Rey Mysterio making the jump to the Red Brand. 

MVP (2009)

A year after he was drafted to Raw, Mysterio earned his show the first overall pick in 2009. MVP, who was United States Champion at the time, got the nod.

Kelly Kelly (2010)

Kelly Kelly was the first woman to ever be selected first in the WWE Draft when Lay-Cool (Michelle McCool and Layla) beat Maryse and Eve Torres to send the future Divas Champion to SmackDown.

Seth Rollins (2016)

The initial brand split between Raw and SmackDown officially ended in August 2011 and would not be seen again until 2016. The random lottery format was abandoned in favor of commissioners Shane McMahon (SmackDown) and Stephanie McMahon (Raw) and their respective general managers (Daniel Bryan and Mick Foley) making the selections. It also introduced the idea of Raw consistently getting more picks than SmackDown due to it being one hour longer. Seth Rollins, still in the back pocket of The Authority at the time, was chosen No. 1 overall by Stephanie.

Becky Lynch (2019)

Over the next three years, the Draft was replaced by the Superstar Shake-up and had the two brands trading wrestlers rather than making picks. The brand split was then heavily weakened in early 2019 when Vince McMahon introduced the Wild Card Rule that allowed wrestlers to pop up on the other brands. However, when SmackDown moved to FOX in late 2019 another Draft was held as the brand split was firmly re-established. Becky Lynch, the Raw Women’s Champion, was chosen first to stay on Raw. SmackDown immediately followed that by keeping Roman Reigns on SmackDown.

Drew McIntyre (2020)

Even though COVID-19 had the two rosters working in just one location, WWE still held a Draft in 2020. The first picks saw the two brands keep their respective world champions in WWE Champion Drew McIntyre (Raw) and Universal Champion Roman Reigns (SmackDown). A little over a month after the Draft the pair would clash in the main event of Survivor Series.