9 WWE Superstars who were #1 picks in the Draft

#8 WWE Draft 2004 - Renee Dupree

Renee Dupree

The second edition of the WWE Draft was announced on March 14th, 2004, the day after Wrestlemania XX. The tagline of the show was "Where it all began", and the Draft was held to support just that.

The 2004 Draft introduced a new process for drafting superstars. Instead of informed choices, the General Managers from each brand would pick names out of a lottery basket. RAW's GM at that time was Eric Bischoff, who stood across from Paul Heyman, his counterpart on SmackDown.

"@OldSchoolRaw @HeymanHustle and @EBischoff exchange words at the 2nd ever @WWE draft lottery, Raw. March 22, 2004. pic.twitter.com/5dFnnnbOqp"

— Paul Heyman (@HeymanHustle) March 23, 2014

SmackDown was given the first opportunity at the Draft. Heyman picked out a name at random, according to kayfabe anyway, to reveal that Renee Dupree was the #1 pick. The 20-year-old Canadian then was a bright young prospect slated for big things.

BREAKING: WWE names Paul @HeymanHustle Executive Director of #Raw and @EBischoff Executive Director of #SDLive, as first reported by @SInow! https://t.co/5kVwoyfxUw

— WWE (@WWE) June 27, 2019

After the Draft, Renee unsuccessfully challenged John Cena for the WWE United States Championship for a few months. He later won the WWE Tag Team titles with Kenzo Suzuki. At the age of 20, he was the youngest wrestler to do so.

In the following years, he bounced around RAW and ECW, never making any significant impact. In 2007, he requested his release from the company and was subsequently let go.