Raw from March 22, 2004. The Draft Lottery, the first draft since the brands were first split two years earlier. The picks started off pretty dull with Rene Dupree and Mark Jindrak going to Smackdown early on. Dupree would be in the US title picture for a short while before being paired with Kenzo Suzuki, while Jindrak would go on to be the face of Velocity. Raw would get Shelton Benjamin which was good for him, bad for Charlie Haas as he would get paired with Rico. Raw would also gain the only woman drafted, Nidia. Yeah, apparently she was still with WWE then. Smackdown would draft Triple H and Paul Heyman immediately put him in a title match against Eddie Guerrero later that night (Triple H would end up getting traded back to Raw in trades occurring off TV). Eric Bischoff then stated whoever he drafted next was going to have a title match against Chris Benoit. It would turn out to be Rhyno. My two favorites from that time were both drafted, Edge to Raw and Rob Van Dam to Smackdown. RVD's selection came right after he and Booker T lost the Tag Team Titles to Ric Flair & Batista. A few more mid-carders in the form of Raw getting Tajiri and Smackdown getting Spike Dudley. Teddy Long would get drafted to Smackdown after he had apparently been managing Jazz. And the final pick saw Raw gaining Smackdown's very own GM, Paul Heyman. Bischoff said he had tasks for Heyman to do, to which Heyman decided to quit.
Also on the show, Rene Dupree, after being drafted to Raw said he didn't want his last moment on Raw being receiving the Stone Cold Stunner the previous week, so he issued an open challenge, which was accepted by Chris Jericho. After losing to Jericho, Dupree was still not happy, and things only got worse when Stone Cold came out and delivered a stunner. Kane squashed Rico then threatened both GMs saying he doesn't care which brand he ends up on as long as it's not the same as The Undertaker. After Paul Heyman was drafted, Eric Bischoff went to the ring to gloat where he was met by Edge, who was returning. The main even between Triple H and Eddie Guerrero saw Flair and Batista come out to interfere but they were stopped by John Cena and Rey Mysterio. Batista still managed to toss the WWE title belt into the ring and as Triple H was about to use it he was attacked by HBK. Soon a large brawl broke out between Raw and Smackdown superstars and the match ended in a no-decision.
