The WWE draft lottery is over, and the net result is that Raw general manager Eric Bischoff got his clock cleaned by SmackDown boss Teddy Long.
Long picked up Randy Orton, Christian, Chris Benoit, Muhammed Hassan and Batista, all impact players. The loss of John Cena hurt, but The Big Show, Carlito and Rob Van Dam have not been big stars on SmackDown the last few months. Kurt Angle has to be the one Long cringes about because nobody in the business brings the total package the way Angle does. With the final pick being Batista, there's little doubt that SmackDown is the better of the brands.
As for the draft lottery, the bosses in Stamford need to do a better job next year of explaining how the whole thing works. If they are trying to persuade me that the old Ping-Pong balls in the hopper" trick was used to pull out the next pick, well, quite frankly, I'm not buying it. If their claim is that the GMs were making the picks (as was implied, I believe), then Bischoff should be fired on the spot.
HEARD AROUND THE RING: The Coach was a participant in the World Series of Poker and made a quick exit. ... Rob Van Dam is a few months away from getting back in the ring full time.
Copyright The Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.
