Draft Strategy & Defense
Jacob Williams
Favorite Pick: Royal Rumble 92 Picking this up in the third round was a steal. Despite being mostly a one match show, that Rumble match might be the most rewatchable hour of any WWF/E PPV. A blue chipper for sure.
Least Favorite Pick: Chi-Town Rumble. I think it is worthy of the spot I drafted it, but I likely could have held off and still got it or a similar WCW show later on. I probably would have been better off shoring up my Royal Rumble or SummerSlam spots. I learned pretty quickly that the first ten or so rounds are pretty straightforward, then things get really tricky.
Defense: I really wanted to go for variety in my picks through different eras, big moments, and great wrestling and not focus too much on one element. I think I managed to strike a nice balance of all of those elements without sacrificing too much. My bias towards 96-97 WWE shows up in my later picks for sure, though I’d argue that what some of those lack in match quality, they make up for in historical significance (Ex. IYH: Final Four). Those shows just seem a little more valuable later in the draft than a show from a fairly forgettable card from 2009 that has a little better match quality. If you were to go on an 100 hour wrestling binge with my roster of shows, you’d have a pretty good time, while also getting a decent idea of North American wrestling the last 30-40 years.
Best Draft Not My Own: This was tough. JT’s draft strikes me as the best just because he got the most value out of each pick, while also snagging some shows that I probably value more than most people (KOTR 93). He picked his spots well, and had a nice variety of eras thrown in, which was a key factor for me.
Jennifer Smith:
Favorite Pick: My favorite pick of the draft was of course my favorite pay per view, Uncensored 1995. I know, I know, it’s trash, yada yada yada and I could have waited until the last fucking round to take it because God knows no one else was going to. Quite frankly, I couldn’t trust these other fucks to not hate draft it. Anyway, this show includes an amazing King of the Road match (which I feel like needs to brought back, don’t @ me) Johnny B. Badd and Arn Anderson in a Boxer vs. Wrestler match, a Falls Count Anywhere Texas Tornado Tag Team match that ended up in the concession stand, and fucking Ric Flair in drag. I rest my case.
Least Favorite Pick: I don’t have a least favorite pick, I obviously kick ass at this project.
Defense: Look, I have WrestleMania X7, Vengeance 03, a trio of great TakeOvers, a fuckton of WCW, the Yetaaaayyy and then some other stuff the internet told me was good but I haven’t seen yet. And even threw in KOTR 95 for some perspective. My draft is very ME so I stand by it.
Best Draft Not My Own: JT Rozzero’s because he got TakeOver New Orleans, which I really wanted. And I suppose the rest is pretty ok.
Logan Crosland:
Favorite pick: My favorite pick was actually my last pick of SummerSlam 1995. As many people don’t consider this a good show I consider it very underrated. It’s got one of the best ladder matches of all time in Razor vs. Shawn II, which is easily a five star match. Also has good undercard matches in Barry Horowitz vs Skip and 123 Kid vs Hakushi. Good value pick at the point I picked it.
Least Favorite Pick: SummerSlam 2014. As good as Lesnar vs Cena and Rollins vs. Ambrose in the lumberjack match are great there is not entirely too much else to this show. It’s got a good Ziggler-Miz match as well but definitely one of my weaker picks.
Defense: I started my draft by getting what I believe to be one of the best non big four PPVs in Money in the Bank 2011, with a five star classic between John Cena and CM Punk on it. I then tried to select what I believed to be the best of all the big four show, while peppering in a few WCW and Takeover picks. I was able to get the biggest WCW moment with the formation of the NWO at Bash at the Beach 96. After that I went into the portion of my draft where I picked what I thought were the best non big 4 shows that were left. I would then use some of my flex picks with some personal favorites, while using a couple of my later picks to grab my ECW shows. All in all I am happy with my picks.
Best Draft Not My Own: Neil Trama’s. I found him to be the guy I would always say “damn I wanted that show” after most of his picks.
Steve Riddle
Favorite Pick: My favorite pick of the draft would have to be Takeover: Chicago in that when talking about the recent Takeovers, this one seems to fall between the cracks. But it is one of the best Takeovers with the awesome Dunne/Bate match, some other solid matches, and a great main event which leads to NXT’s greatest feud in Gargano/Ciampa.
Least Favorite Pick: My least favorite would be my last pick of Elimination Chamber 2011 only because I ended up missing out on SummerSlam 95, which could’ve been great late value.
Defense:In coming up with the right strategy in doing my draft, I wanted to be able to have a perfect balance of having great shows in addition with some of my favorite shows of all time even if they aren’t necessarily considered great. I feel very satisfied with my draft as I have some very memorable shows (Survivor Series 96, WM 23, Summerslam 02, Starrcade 85, etc.) and have some shows that are among personal favorites (WM 14, Summerslam 97, Massacre, Armageddon 00, Payback 15).
Best Draft Not My Own: I would have to say my favorite draft besides myself would be Tyler even though he had it out for me towards the end. I felt that he made some really good choices and that he has a good balance of shows, but I do want to give an honorable mention to Jennifer. She is probably the only person to have some all time great shows while also glorifying possibly one of the worst years in wrestling history in 1995.
Trent Williams
Favorite Pick: It is really hard to choose just one favorite pick of my draft as I really feel like my entire lineup is really solid and could go pick by pick on why I chose each show, but since I can only choose one favorite I will say ECW One Night Stand 2005. I picked ONS 05 in the 12th round which feels like a bit of a steal as I know it’s a super popular show and had I not picked it when I did I feel that it wouldn’t have been there by the time it got back around for me to pick. The reason ONS 05 is such a great show isn’t necessarily because of what happens in the ring from bell to bell (although there is a hell of a match on the card between Mike Awesome and Masato Tanaka) but rather the atmosphere surrounding the entire show. This may have been a show that was produced by WWE but thankfully they made it feel as much like an ECW show taking place in the Hammerstein Ballroom as they could. The show was even booked like an ECW show with some of the segments and matches just flowing right into the other and a sense of not knowing exactly what was going on but knowing that it was a ton of fun to watch. It may have been four years since the closing of ECW but these passionate fans of the promotion had not lost their touch at all as they were still a bunch of bloodthirsty, non PC chanting, hardcore loving fans that knew what they liked in their wrestling and wouldn’t accept anything or anyone trying to interfere with that. Since this show was a WWE produced show it couldn’t go on without having Raw and SmackDown stars featured on it, but they found the best way to utilize those stars as the true heels of the show who sat up in a balcony and were a group of Statler and Waldorfs who shit on everything the ECW guys were doing in the ring. The Raw and SmackDown guys would get theirs at the end of the night in a giant brawl with the ECW guys that was really cool (except for JBL shooting on Blue Meanie). Overall One Night Stand is a really fun show that is an easy watch as nothing on the show lasts too long and you get a bit of every kind of style of wrestling in one show.
Least Favorite Pick: I would like to refer to this category as the weakest pick rather than least favorite as all the shows I picked are favorites of mine in some way, shape, form, or fashion. My weakest pick has to be SummerSlam 1993 for two reasons, the first reason is because it has the blow off to the infamous Undertaker vs Giant Gonzalez feud which is enough to drag down any show on its own (I hope this doesn’t cause heat between me and Mr. El Gigante on Facebook). The other reason as to why this is the weakest show is the fact that compared to all the other shows on my draft it has one of the weaker main events in Lex Luger vs Yokozuna which has an unsatisfying ending that sees Luger win the match by count out which meant that he failed to take the title off Yokozuna despite the fact that WWE had been building him up all summer as the next big pro America baby face. Although the show has those two sore spots it does have more good on it than bad such as the extended two match segment involving Bret Hart & Jerry Lawler that does a great job of continuing their feud, a really fun tag match between the Steiners and the Heavenly Bodies, a decent but disappointing match between Shawn Michaels & Mr Perfect, & one of Ted Dibiase’s last matches of his career as he takes on “The Bad Guy” Razor Ramon.
Defense: Going into this draft I wanted to pick shows that had solid cards from top to bottom rather than pick shows that were good because of one or two matches. I personally would rather watch shows that have a solid undercard and the last two matches are just decent rather than a show that has a crappy or boring undercard but two all time great matches as the main events, rarely do you get shows that produce great matches for the entire show ie WrestleMania XIX. I really didn’t have a strategy as to what order I wanted to pick each show, I just picked what felt right at that time based on what was left on my giant pick board that I had created and just made sure I kept track of each category so that I could make sure all the great shows of one category didn’t get taken before I had a chance to pick one of them. I wanted to make sure I picked shows that had a good variety of match styles that way there would be something for every type of wrestling fan whether you like high flying, brawling, hardcore, technical, etc. The final thing I wanted to accomplish with my draft since was to pick shows that had a good to great women’s match on the card and I think I did a decent job of doing that (Rumble 19, Survivor Series 1987 & 1995, One Night Stand 2008, Evolution, & all three of my NXT/NXTUK Takeover picks). In closing I will say that if you like matches such as Flair vs Michaels (WM 24), DIY vs Revival (Takeover: Toronto, Angle vs Austin (SummerSlam 01), Michaels vs Angle (WM 21), Mysterio vs Guerrero (Halloween Havoc 1997), Becky Lynch vs Charlotte Flair (Evolution), etc then pick my draft as the best as those great matches are just the tip of the iceberg for the fantastic matches that are on the shows for my draft.
Best Draft That’s Not My Own: Jennifer Smith At a glance you wouldn’t expect Jennifer’s to be that great as she has shows such as Uncensored 95, Halloween Havoc 95, King of the Ring 95, & Starrcade 2000 but the other shows on her draft more than make up for those unpopular shows as she has the universally loved WrestleMania X-7, Royal Rumble 90, Starrcade 83, Survivor Series 2018, etc. Not everyone could have a draft board that has so many bad shows that become an afterthought because the rest of their picks are so damn good, but Jennifer does and that’s why she gets my vote of having the second best draft behind myself.
JT Rozzero
Favorite Pick: I really felt good about my first four picks. I was able to land the best SummerSlam and best Takeover on the board right out of the gate, setting the tone for my draft.
Last Favorite Pick: I didn’t have too many picks that I regretted but I guess taking WrestleMania XXV and having No Mercy 2002 drop right after stung. Looking back I should have grabbed that show and worried about Mania the next trip around. I also kept waiting to pounce on the best TNA or ROH but it just never happened and I did regret that too.
Defense: My strategy heading into the draft was pretty basic: 1) Leave ECW to the end, because something has to be left behind and I felt that ECW was ECW and there wasn’t a huge difference top to bottom, 2) Do the same with Survivor Series… I felt there wasn’t a ton of value there, so I just sat on those for a long while and 3) Not worry about prioritizing WrestleMania. In my mind, once you get passed the top two or three Manias, the next tier is rather wide with not much separating them. Given my draft spot, I had no chance at X-7 or XIX so I figured I would turn elsewhere and clean up the best of the rest before worrying about it. That helped me land the best SummerSlam, best Takeover and an iconic show in One Night Stand. And I feel I still ended up with two real strong Manias in VII and 22. Overall I just kept trying to focus on best available as well. My roster may not have the big name Manias, but it is pretty stacked top to bottom with loaded cards and memorable matches.
Best Draft That’s Not My Own: I really like Jacob’s roster. He took full advantage of his draft slot and then backed it up with strong, full cards up and down. He even landed the underrated SuperBrawl II pretty late. Riddle’s roster is strong too and I have to give props to Jenny for having the most top and bottom heavy draft you could possibly put together. Stars and scrubs indeed.
Tyler Kelley
Favorite Pick: No Way Out 2001. I expected this show to go much earlier, and was thrilled to see it in the third round. I consider this a top four WWE secondary PPV and think it was great value to grab with pick #23.
Least Favorite Pick: Royal Rumble 2008. This is less about the pick than the opportunity cost of what I didn’t pick. I missed out on the top-tier Royal Rumbles (‘92, ‘00, ‘07, ‘01) and convinced myself that I NEEDED to grab a Royal Rumble with this pick and that I could wait as long as I wanted to get top-end WCW shows. Neither was true, and I regret not grabbing Beach Blast ‘92 or Spring Stampede ‘99 here and taking my chances with a Rumble later. I think ‘08 was the best Rumble on the board, but not significantly better than the next one I could grab a round or two later.
Defense: My strategy going into the draft was 1) take the best available show, regardless of need, especially early in the draft 2) get value out of the flex spot picks and 3) save the ECW shows for the last picks, like kickers and defense in a fantasy football draft. Going with the best available show let me grab WCW’s best show Great American Bash ‘89 and two of the best secondary PPVs of all-time in Extreme Rules ‘12 and No Way Out ‘01. Getting value out of the flex spots was trickier, though I am very happy with using my first flex pick to grab WM V, giving me an incredibly deep WM roster in my opinion (WM XX, WM VIII, WM 28, WM V.) Other flex picks evolved to trying to grab old-school WCW shows to nabbing TNA’s best match with Unbreakable ‘05 (great value in round 26) and finishing up with good secondary shows and a great Ring of Honor show. As for the ECW shows, I’m just not familiar with their PPVs and didn’t want to invest any time or early draft picks guessing. Overall, I think I have great secondary shows, an incredibly deep WM roster, good SummerSlams, a nice diverse slate of WCW shows and good value from my flex picks. So vote for Pedro! I mean Tyler! (Read more from Tyler about his draft right here.)
Best Draft Not My Own:This is a tough question to answer as I think I cursed everyone else in this draft for stealing my pick at least once. But the one that seemed to just beat me to a pick more often than anyone was Steve Riddle, so I’m going with his draft. I liked his first few picks grabbing SummerSlam ‘02 and Canadian Stampede and loved some of his later picks in St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and One Night Only (so much so I may have told him to do something that is physically impossible and inappropriate.)
Neil Trama
Favorite Pick: So I went into this draft with minimal strategy outside of a goal to pick my own personal favorite shows whenever possible. I couldn’t believe I was able to get WrestleManias X and III with my first two picks and was really happy to snag ECW Barely Legal and two solid Takeovers with early picks. By the middle rounds I targeted shows that either had one really blowaway match or an overall fun vibe throughout. For the former, I looked to some overlooked classics like International Incident’s six man tag, In Your House #2 & #5’s Shawn Michaels/Jeff Jarrett and Bret Hart/British Bulldog classics, and Royal Rumble 2003 with an outstanding Angle/Benoit title match and a really fun Rumble. WrestleMania XXXIV I also think was a steal, assuming you ignore pretty much everything in the second half of the show. For the latter I opted for some of my personal favorite bits of absurdity like Art Donovan’s commentary on King of the Ring 1994, the Gobbledy Gooker’s appearance at Survivor Series 1990, and, because I needed a show with a Bobby/Gorilla two-man booth, Royal Rumble 1993.
Favorite Pick: WrestleMania III in the second round! How could there be a bigger steal for a more iconic show? I also was extremely happy to have Backlash 2004 & 2000, as well as SummerSlam 1991 fall to me where they did.
Least Favorite Pick: I don’t know squat about WCW so every pick of theirs I made was a total shot in the dark based on the show’s Wikipedia entry. I’m also really bummed that I missed out on taking One Night Stand 2005, Survivor Series 1989 and SummerSlam 1995 (in the 30TH ROUND!!) because I thought they were taken rounds earlier.
Best Draft Not My Own: JT had some really great picks early on and Jenny entertained me with her draft’s sheer wackiness (King of the Ring 1995 in the 20th round!) but for my overall favorite, I find myself oddly drawn to Steve’s draft. He started with a few shows I targeted early (Canadian Stampede, Takeover Brooklyn, Royal Rumble 91) and a bunch of my personal favorites (Summerslam 97, King of the Ring 98, WrestleMania 2000.)
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