Soon after the WWE Draft 2023 is over, top Raw Superstar Natalya opened up about crossing the brand barriers. This eventually points out the current thinness of the WWE roster which often forces the creative team to break the brand split and make their superstars cross brands whenever the storyline perspective requires it.
One of the most veteran talents on the WWE roster, Natalya has recently teased showing up on SmackDown, just a few days after being drafted to Monday Night Raw. During the 2023 edition of Draft, the longest-tenured female talent on WWE’s roster was drafted to the red brand during the Supplemental Draft after Night One during Smackdown LowDown.
Prior to this, she was part of the Smackdown roster since the 2020 draft. However, due to WWE moving out of their brand split rules, Natalya as well as many top talents often made cross-brand appearances on Raw and Smackdown.
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The Queen of Harts seemed not that much ready to move on from her time on SmackDown. In a new interview with The Archive Of B-Sox, she said that it’s entirely possible that she could still be appearing on SmackDown after the draft if and when the storyline needs it.
“It’s exciting. I got drafted from SmackDown to Raw, but that doesn’t mean that I still can’t show up on SmackDown. That’s kind of the cool part about being in WWE. You’re drafted to a certain brand, but if the storyline calls for it, you can show up on another show. It’s cool,” Natalya stated.
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Natalya reveals officials didn’t give them any heads-up about roster allotments
The former Divas Champion revealed more details about the latest bygone Draft by saying that she didn’t have any such heads-up about changing brand during the shakeup process. In fact, no talent had no such prior intimation about it and they learned about their spots when the televised announcements were made.
“To be perfectly honest, I like it that way. We get to be part of the fan excitement and things can change so fast. In some ways, I’d rather just know about it as it comes rather than hear about it, it gets changed, then you get your hopes up or get excited, and it doesn’t happen,” Natalya added. (quotes courtesy Fightful)
Not considering what’s in store in the future, WWE had reportedly insisted that the rosters will remain split with hard brand split rules intact on those. However, proving Natalya’s assumption true, there are some free agents who will be able to appear on Raw and SmackDown. The names like Brock Lesnar and Omos (with MVP) remain under that status.
