The two-night event began with the April 28 episode of Friday Night SmackDown (in Corpus Christi, Texas) and concluded with the May 1 episode of Monday Night Raw (in Fort Worth, Texas), with SmackDown airing on Fox and Raw on the USA Network.
WWE official Adam Pearce was supposed to announce the round three picks with Michaels but instead had to help break up a fight between Brock Lesnar and Cody Rhodes.
[7][10] Within WWE's storylines, a "free agent" refers to a contracted wrestler who has not been assigned to one of the company's three brands—Raw, SmackDown, or NXT—and can in turn appear on any brand.
The following wrestlers were included in the draft pools but ultimately became free agents, either through contractual negotiations or going undrafted.
[20] This switch was made because Irvin is engaged to Ricochet, who was drafted to Raw, as WWE tries to keep real-life couples on the same brand.
[22] Furthermore, although Los Lotharios (Angel and Humberto) were drafted to Raw, they would also appear in NXT on the June 13 episode, stating they would be going after the NXT Tag Team Championship (their individual ring names would also revert to Angel Garza and Humberto Carrillo, respectively, in July), they later returned to the main roster on the December 22 episode of SmackDown.
[32] At SmackDown: New Year's Revolution, NXT's Tyler Bate made his main roster debut.
Following Royal Rumble appearances, NXT's Tiffany Stratton and Bron Breakker were subsequently promoted to the main roster on the SmackDown brand.
During this time, the SmackDown stable The Brawling Brutes was disbanded as Ridge Holland later moved back to the NXT brand, while Butch would return to using his original ring name Pete Dunne and started a tag team with Bate under the name New Catch Republic.
[34] On the June 9 episode of SmackDown, the issue of the NXT Women's Tag Team Championship being on SmackDown would be addressed as reigning WWE Women's Tag Team Champions Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler challenged Dawn and Fyre to a championship unification match, which was accepted and scheduled for the June 23 episode.
The NXT Women's Tag Team Championship was subsequently retired in the process, with Dawn and Fyre recognized as the final champions.
[38] The issue of the Raw and SmackDown women's championships being on the opposite brands would be resolved a month after the draft following the Night of Champions event.
[41] Edge would also leave WWE upon the expiration of his contract at the end of September and subsequently joined rival promotion All Elite Wrestling under his real name of Adam Copeland.
[44] Bray Wyatt was not included in either draft pool and had been off WWE programming since February 2023 due to an undisclosed illness.
[46] These included Dolph Ziggler, Shelton Benjamin, Elias, Mustafa Ali, Emma, Riddick Moss, Aliyah, Top Dolla, Rick Boogs, Dabba-Kato, Shanky, Maximum Male Models (ma.çé and mån.sôör), Quincy Elliot, Dana Brooke, Yulisa León, Ikemen Jiro, Matt Riddle, Bryson Montana, Daniel McArthur, Kevin Ventura-Cortez, Alexis Gray, Brooklyn Barlow, Abule Abadi-Fitzgerald, Melanie Brzezinski, Alexis Lete, Alivia Ash, Gina Delucia, Giovanna Eburneo and Sarah Baer.
[47] In April 2024, WWE released a number of wrestlers from all three brands, including Xia Li,[48] Jinder Mahal,[49] Veer Mahaan,[50] Sanga,[51] Xyon Quinn,[52] Von Wagner,[53] Cameron Grimes[54] and Guru Raaj from their contracts.