Finn Balor has been moved to Friday Night SmackDown. However, it was not the result of a formal WWE draft.
The former WWE Universal Champion’s trade to SmackDown was announced during the June 1 episode of Monday Night Raw. JD McDonagh responded by claiming Balor would not be missed and that Judgment Day would have ended his career had he stayed on the red brand.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer explained that WWE simply wanted to get Balor away from Dominik Mysterio and JD McDonagh following the conclusion of their feud on Raw.
“I never heard anything about a draft. The idea is they just want to get him away from Dominik Mysterio and JD,” Meltzer said.
The logic, per Meltzer, is straightforward: keeping Balor on Raw would have made it difficult to avoid further interactions with his former Judgment Day stablemates. The brand move gives him a clean break and a fresh start.
“He beat JD, and if he stays on Raw, how does he not work with those guys? So they just figured they’re done with that — they’re done with Finn Bálor doing that — and they wanted to give him a fresh start,” Meltzer added.
Meltzer also drew a comparison to how WWE handled Rey Mysterio and Dominik Mysterio after their feud ran its course, noting the company has used brand separation before to keep former rivals apart.
“A lot of times they do that — they run a feud, it’s over, and the nature of the feud is they just don’t want them interacting anymore. Like when Rey Mysterio and Dominik were done, they did the same thing. They moved Rey over, and they weren’t supposed to interact — even though they are now, or about to,” he said.
On SmackDown, Bálor is scheduled to compete in a first-round Fatal 4-Way in the King of the Ring tournament, facing Royce Keys, LA Knight, and Jey Uso.