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WWE Announces Supplemental 2023 Draft Picks (Night 1), Plus Free Agents

By John Canton • Published 29th April 2023
WWE Draft

There were more 2023 WWE Draft picks announced on Smackdown Lowdown following night one of the draft.

The first night of the 2023 WWE Draft took place on the April 28th edition of Smackdown from Corpus Christi, Texas with some big names staying where they are while others were switching shows. It was announced by WWE”s Chief Content Officer Triple H that the new rosters will be in place starting on Monday’s Raw on May 8th, which is two nights after Backlash.

In the first round, The Bloodline’s Roman Reigns, Solo Sikoa & Paul Heyman were drafted to Smackdown along with the Raw Women’s Champion Bianca Belair. As for Raw, they picked Cody Rhodes and Becky Lynch in the first round.

There were four rounds of picks which meant eight Smackdown picks and eight Raw picks that were shown on television. The rest of the moves from the first batch of superstars were announced on the Smackdown Lowdown show that airs on Peacock/Network on Saturdays.

Since Raw is a three-hour show and Smackdown is two hours, Raw gets more talent on the show, so they got more supplemental draft picks. Here’s how it turned out.

Raw:

Natalya
Viking Raiders (Erik, Ivar & Valhalla)
Dexter Lumis
Candice LeRae
Maximum Male Models (Mansoor, Mace & Maxxine Dupri)
Chelsea Green & Sonya Deville
Zoey Stark
JD McDonagh
Apollo Crews

The trio of Stark, McDonagh & Crews were all NXT draft picks although Crews obviously spent many years on the WWE main roster.

SmackDown:

Hit Row (Top Dolla, Ashante “Thee” Adonis & B-Fab)
Lacey Evans

WWE also announced that the following wrestlers are free agents:

Dolph Ziggler
Omos (w/MVP)
Mustafa Ali
Von Wagner

The following was also tweeted by WWE as well with the news of the draft picks.