Backstage Draft News: Snitsky & Torrie Wilson Trades

Partial Source: The Wrestling Observer Newsletter

There had been talk for some time of moving Snitsky from ECW to Raw, so this move was no surprise. They wanted to move him to the bigger show because you can only get over on ECW to a certain degree, and they thought the time was now to make the move. Some people think that because of his size and mean look, he can be like Kane when he was a heel. For the time being, they plan on using him similarly to how he was used in ECW. They're going to have him squash undercard wrestlers for a while. It'll be similar to what they did with Umaga last year before he moved on to a big feud with John Cena. In early 2008, the plan is for Snitsky to work a title program with Cena.

Torrie Wilson was moved to SmackDown because Ashley Massaro is going to be away until the end of the year to be a contestant for Survivor on CBS, and they needed a new babyface diva. There was some thought given to moving Maria, but ultimately, they wanted to replace a blonde with another blonde.

At last week's draft lottery, groups of wrestlers would be taken to holding areas backstage every time it was time to make a draft pick. They wanted to keep everyone guessing, including their own employees. A few people, like Chris Benoit, were told in advance that they were being drafted, but most weren't aware of their status until the moment their photo came up on the TitanTron. Torrie Wilson is a good example of that. Some wrestlers were upset that WWE kept them in the dark. When the show was over, the feeling was that SmackDown had been hurt in favor of boosting Raw. Then again, that was a given going in because Shawn Michaels' injury last month was the impetus for the draft, and Raw needed to be beefed up.