The 2019 WWE draft got underway on Friday's edition of SmackDown, and some major moves have already been made.

Raw women's champion Becky Lynch being the premier pick for the flagship show was an expected albeit excellent move. SmackDown responded by securing Roman Reigns, as well as "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt in an interesting turn of events.

The rest of rounds saw several Superstars switch shows for the first time and a handful of others remain where they were. The draft's layout was largely well done, with Stephanie McMahon announcing the picks for each brand and the USA Network and Fox "war rooms" reacting accordingly.

Better yet, more than half of WWE's roster remain in the preliminary draft pool. We will find out where everyone else will wind up in the Night 2 of the WWE draft Monday night on Raw, as well as how the return of the Brand Split will affect certain championships, among other things.

Looking at the big board for the 2019 WWE draft, a number of notable Superstars are still free to be signed by SmackDown or Raw. These are the eight best stars whose futures have yet to be determined and should be considered top priorities.

WWE Champion Brock Lesnar

SmackDown drafting WWE champion Brock Lesnar as its first pick Monday is all but a done deal, it would seem.

Lesnar has been a fixture on the blue brand for the past month, and on the show's grand Fox debut earlier in October, he slaughtered Kofi Kingston in under 10 seconds to become the new WWE champion. He didn't appear again until the following Friday, when he addressed Cain Velasquez and hyped up their heavily touted rematch at Crown Jewel on October 31.

Needless to say, there's no way Raw or SmackDown will end up with two of WWE's top titles after the draft. Seth Rollins is better off staying on Raw so Lesnar can head back to SmackDown, the show he called home for the first two years of his professional wrestling career.

Furthermore, if Fox is looking to legitimatize SmackDown any way it can, bringing in Lesnar as an attraction toward the top of the card would help with that. He's already in the midst of a high-profile program with Velasquez that is bound to receive plenty of mainstream attention, and SmackDown is the perfect place for that story to play out.

It's already been announced that Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks will kick off Monday's Raw to determine which brand will get the first pick of the night. Since Seth Rollins beat Roman Reigns by disqualification on Friday, Banks should win this time around and bring The Beast Incarnate with her to SmackDown.

Universal Champion Seth Rollins

If Brock Lesnar is primed to move to SmackDown in the 2019 WWE draft, it's only logical for Seth Rollins to remain on Raw.

Team Red drafted the the polarizing universal champion three years ago, and he has served as the face of the flagship show since. He hasn't done much to endear himself to the audience lately (especially after what transpired at Hell in a Cell), but there's no denying he's one of WWE's top talents.

A run on SmackDown would be refreshing for Rollins eventually, but not right now. It's more important that he stays puts on Monday nights and holds down the fort there alongside Becky Lynch.

The real question is how this will affect his rivalry with "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt. Their Hell in a Cell clash ended in underwhelming fashion—to put it nicely—and set up the obvious need for a rematch sometime soon.

That rematch will not come at Crown Jewel, with Rollins scheduled to take part in the Team Hogan vs. Team Flair 10-man tag team match, so the earliest they can wage war again is Survivor Series. There's also the chance WWE drops the storyline without giving it a proper conclusion, which wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened.

Daniel Bryan

Daniel Bryan has had a whirlwind of a year in 2019, going from reigning as WWE champion to being betrayed by confidant Erick Rowan.

Thankfully, he was able to exact a measure of revenge on his former friend at Hell in a Cell when he formed an unlikely alliance with Roman Reigns to defeat the duo of Rowan and Luke Harper. Despite heavy speculation that he would turn on Reigns afterward, he instead embraced him with a hug before making his exit.

Those actions seemed to cement Bryan as a fan favorite once again, something fans will surely be happy to hear if the reactions he's been receiving lately have been any indication. As entertaining of a heel as he was, he's a natural babyface—and that's the role that suits him best.

Bryan returned to action in March 2018 as a member of the SmackDown roster. That's where he's resided ever since, and for good reason, because he would have been lost in the shuffle had he moved to Raw.

Despite already having held the WWE Championship and SmackDown Tag Team Championships, Bryan should stay on SmackDown and continue to do what he can to make the blue brand the best it can be. Then again, a return to Raw and potential rivalries with Seth Rollins are Drew McIntyre are also worth considering.

SmackDown Women's Champion Bayley

Bayley's stock skyrocketed in the matter of a month thanks to an abrupt yet much-needed change in character. The last thing fans expected out of WWE's resident hugger was a heel turn, but it has proved to be the best thing to happen to her in some time.

In the weeks following her heel turn, she didn't do much to get under the skin of fans or alter anything about her image or attitude. In fact, it wasn't until she lost the SmackDown Women's Championship to Charlotte Flair at Hell in a Cell pay-per-view that she finally snapped and decided to ditch everything that has made her so endearing over the years.

She walked into her championship rematch with Flair on Friday Night SmackDown with a new look, updated attire and an unprecedented mean streak. She proceeded to avenge the loss to her longtime rival and win back the belt she never should have lost in the first place.

Just like that, Bayley is a hot commodity again and should be sought-after by Raw and SmackDown in the second half of the WWE draft. As the SmackDown women's champion, the blue brand would be foolish to not snatch her up immediately.

From there, she and Sasha Banks can officially reunite and rule the women's ranks on SmackDown. That could also put them in prime position to challenge for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championships before long if they so choose.

Charlotte Flair

No longer the SmackDown Women's champion, Charlotte Flair's future has definitely been put into question.

Flair joined the blue brand in April 2017. Although it took time for her to find her footing as a face, she eventually won the SmackDown Women's Championship and embarked on a five-month reign with the title.

She's held the gold on a number of occasions since, but none of those runs were particularly memorable. It was pretty pointless for her to capture a championship for the 10th time at Hell in a Cell if the plan was always for her to lose it back to Bayley days later on SmackDown.

The sudden loss of the title would seem to suggest she's headed to Raw, but that may not necessarily be the case. She has unfinished business with Bayley, and now that Sasha Banks has also been moved to SmackDown, Flair can rekindle her rivalry with her as well.

It's too soon for her to return to Raw, where she would have another program lined up for her with Lynch (whom she just got done feuding with earlier this year). Regardless of whether she's holding a title, Flair has a better chance of being promoted as the female face of SmackDown as long as Lynch is on Raw.

Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura

Per the preliminary draft pools on WWE.com, Shinsuke Nakamura and Sami Zayn are considered one pick unless the USA Network and Fox executives indicate otherwise. Zayn has been nothing more than a mouthpiece for Nakamura recently, so it stands to reason that he will go wherever Nakamura does.

Besides, it's too early in their story for them to be broken up. Ultimately, one of them should turn on the other. And the longer their alliance lasts, the more it will mean when the split happens.

United States champion AJ Styles, along with the rest of The O.C., was picked by Raw in the first round of Friday's WWE draft. Assuming he doesn't drop the star-spangled prize Monday night, that basically guarantees Nakamura will stay on SmackDown with the Intercontinental Championship.

Nakamura has bled blue since debuting on the brand two nights removed from WrestleMania 33. He was a fixture in the main-roster scene for more than a year, but countless losses to Jinder Mahal and AJ Styles caused him to settle into a midcard role after a while.

He's barely begun to scratch the surface of what he can do as intercontinental champion and deserves more opportunities to shine on Friday nights coming out of the draft. The days of WWE neglecting its secondary titles (and Nakamura, for that matter) should be over.

Samoa Joe

WWE hasn't made it all that clear what will happen to inactive Superstars in the WWE draft. According to Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com, Samoa Joe has been out injured with a broken thumb for the past month yet is still eligible to be drafted Monday on Raw, according to WWE.com.

Joe has been a part of both brands multiple times throughout his main-roster run and has done well wherever he's gone. He came close to capturing the Universal and WWE Championships in feuds with Brock Lesnar and AJ Styles, respectively, before finally clinching the United States Championship in March 2019.

Before getting hurt, Joe was involved in feuds with Rey Mysterio, Ricochet and Roman Reigns. When he didn't win the 2019 King of the Ring tournament, it became clear WWE didn't have any plans to push him as a top act on the show.

Who knows whether SmackDown would be a different story for him, but it's worth a shot. It's better than seeing him booked to lose as often as he has been on Raw and not being featured in a meaningful manner.

The Samoan Submission Machine may not be cleared to compete anytime soon, but keep an eye out for him in the second half of the 2019 WWE draft. He's a top prospect on the market and could go in the first few rounds.

The Miz

It's been many months since The Miz was last seen as a threat to any title. He has his failure of a feud with Shane McMahon to blame for that.

Miz was firing on all cylinders as a babyface leading up to his anticipated WrestleMania match with Shane in April. His loss on the Grandest Stage of Them All sent his career into a tailspin, and unfortunately he has yet to recover.

It didn't help that he was drafted to Raw in the Superstar Shake-up despite being better utilized on SmackDown since 2016. It likely wouldn't have mattered much anyway with the wild-card rule in effect, but now that the Brand Split is back, WWE should move Miz back to the blue brand—where he belongs.

The only thing keeping on Raw is that his reality show Miz & Mrs. airs on USA Network. The chances of that getting promoted following an episode of SmackDown on Fox are slim to none once it returns for its second season, so it's more likely he remains on Raw.

Either way, WWE should right the wrongs it has made with Miz this year and allow him to regain the momentum he's lost. If not, he's destined to flounder regardless of where he ends up.

Graham Mirmina, aka Graham "GSM" Matthews, is an Endicott College alumnus and aspiring journalist. Visit his website, Next Era Wrestling, and "like" his official Facebook page to continue the conversation on all things wrestling.