Welcome to night 1 of the 2024 WWE DRAFT via FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN!! This April 26, 2024 episode takes place at the Heritage Bank Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Follow along with our eWrestlingNews live coverage of WWE SmackDown’s match results and other highlights, along with a breakdown of each of the draft picks from tonight’s first half of the shaking up the rosters.
Keep refreshing for updates and be sure to chat it up in the comments section as you watch along!
- The war rooms for Raw and SmackDown are deliberating their upcoming picks. NXT is packed with the roster gathered in Orlando, eagerly awaiting any call-ups. Paul Heyman announced that Roman Reigns withdrew from the draft and won’t be around for a while.
- Contract Signing: Cody Rhodes and AJ Styles made their WWE Championship match at Backlash France, and spoke respectfully about how they both plan to win next week.
- Draft Round 1 – presented by Cody Rhodes and Triple H
- SmackDown selects Bianca Belair
- Raw selects Jey Uso
- SmackDown selects Carmelo Hayes
- Raw selects Seth Rollins
- Carmelo Hayes came out after this round of picks and challenged Cody Rhodes to a match. We’ll be getting that later tonight.
- Latino World Order (Dragon Lee & Rey Mysterio) defeated Legado Del Fantasma (Angel & Berto) by pinfall. After the match, Santos Escobar grabbed a microphone and again, declared that he never attacked Dragon Lee, before showing security footage that it was Carlito who was the culprit. Carlito then gave Lee a backstabber.
- Bron Breakker squashed Cedric Alexander by pinfall in a few seconds.
- Backstage, Nick Aldis informed Tiffany Stratton that she has a match against Naomi later and was almost punished to go to the back of the line after how she interrupted the match last week. Bayley came over to say this was her idea, and if Naomi wins, she gets her deserved title match at Backlash that Tiffany had screwed her out of.
- Draft Round 2 – presented by Michelle McCool and Torrie Wilson
- SmackDown selects Randy Orton
- Raw selects Bron Breakker
- SmackDown selects Nia Jax
- Raw selects Liv Morgan
- Backstage, Paul Heyman was waiting for Solo Sikoa and Tama Tonga to arrive and apologized profusely for not getting the door for Sikoa at first. Solo is mad that The Bloodline hasn’t been drafted yet. Heyman informed Sikoa of Reigns withdrawing from the draft and that this (and Sikoa adding new members) means Raw and SmackDown doesn’t know what they’re getting, so that might be why they haven’t been picked yet. Sikoa isn’t pleased about that, and gets jumped from behind by Kevin Owens before going to a commercial break.
- Back from the commercial break, Bianca Belair was interviewed about how she and Jade Cargill will get a shot at the tag titles at Backlash. This led to a confrontation with Damage CTRL, which was interrupted (before it got physical) by Kevin Owens brawling with The Bloodline. Randy Orton then came out to help Owens run off Sikoa and Tonga.
- Draft Round 3 – presented by Bubba Ray Dudley and D-Von Dudley
- SmackDown selects LA Knight
- Raw selects Ricochet
- SmackDown selects The Bloodline (Solo Sikoa, Tama Tonga and Paul Heyman)
- Raw selects Sheamus
- Naomi vs Tiffany Stratton ended in a no-contest after Nia Jax attacked not only Naomi, but also Bayley, who was ringside for the match. After the match, Stratton placed Bayley and Naomi into the ring and did a Prettiest Moonsault Ever to both of them at the same time.
- Back from the commercial break, The Final Testament has attacked New Catch Republic seemingly just to make a point that no matter where they get drafted, “the violence will continue.”
- Draft Round 4 – presented by Teddy Long and John “Bradshaw” Layfield
- SmackDown selects AJ Styles
- Raw selects Alpha Academy’s Chad Gable, Otis, Akira Tozawa and Maxxine Dupri
- SmackDown selects Andrade
- Raw selects Kiana James
- SmackDown selects AJ Styles
- Cody Rhodes defeated Carmelo Hayes by pinfall. Rhodes showed respect to Hayes after the match, sharing some inaudible words of encouragement. AJ Styles came out to have a stare down with Cody, which ended in a handshake to cap off the show.
What did you think of this episode? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
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