Everything about Wwe Raw totally explained
:
This article is about the television program. You may be looking for the 1994 video game or the 2002 video game.
WWE Raw, trademarked as
WWE RAW, is the Monday night
professional wrestling television program for
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and is the primary broadcast of the Raw brand.
WWE Raw is generally seen as WWE's flagship program over its sister programs,
SmackDown! and
ECW, due to its longer history and the way it's promoted.
The show currently airs
live on
USA Network (and on tape delay Wednesdays on
mun2, and Sundays on
Telemundo (in
Spanish) in the
United States, and in the
United Kingdom and
Republic of Ireland on
Sky Sports 3. It also currently broadcasts on
tape delay in
Canada on
The Score and
Global Quebec, in
Australia on
FOX8, in
Portugal on
SIC Radical,in
Italy on
Sky Italia in
Finland on
MTV3 MAX, in
Malaysia on
Astro Super Sport, in
New Zealand on
The Box, in
Greece on
Supersport 3, in
India and
Pakistan on
Ten Sports, in the
Philippines on
Jack TV and
ABC, in
Chile on Chilevisión, in
Mexico on 52MX, in
Bulgaria on GTV, in
Panama on
RPC Canal 4, in
Peru on
ATV, in
Saudi Arabia and
Middle east on ART SPORT, in
Romania on TV Sport, in
Serbia on
FOX Televizija, in
South Korea on XTM, in
Spain on
Cuatro, in
France on
NT1 and RTL9, in
Brazil on
SBT, in
Argentina on
Canal 9 (Argentina) and on
AFN Xtra.
Raw is also currently being aired on
Etv in
South Africa. It airs on
Canal VTV in
El Salvador and on
Premiere in
Germany and in
Honduras on
Canal 5. Occasionally,
Raw is aired on same-day tape delay when WWE is on an overseas tours.
History
Original format
Beginning as
WWF Monday Night Raw, the program first aired on
January 11,
1993 on the
USA Network for one hour. The original
Raw broke new ground in televised professional wrestling. Traditionally, wrestling shows were taped on sound stages with small audiences or at large arena shows. The
Raw formula was very different than that of its predecessor,
Prime Time Wrestling. Instead of taped matches, with studio voice overs and taped chat,
Raw was a show shot to a live audience, with angles as they happened. The first episode featured
Yokozuna defeating
Koko B. Ware,
The Steiner Brothers defeating The Executioners,
WWF Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels defeating
Max Moon and
The Undertaker defeating
Damien Demento. The show also featured an interview with
Razor Ramon.
Raw originated from the
Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center Studios, a small
New York City theater and aired live each week. The combination of an intimate venue and live action proved highly successful. However, the weekly live schedule proved to be a financial drain on the WWF, and taped shows began airing every other week. From early
1994 to
September 1999,
Raw was shown live on one Monday and then the next day (Tuesday) next Monday's
Raw was taped. This meant that
Raw was live one week and taped the next.
The storylines and
characters during the early years of
Raw still had a healthy dose of the old Federation "
gimmick-heavy" style. For instance, there were moments such as
Irwin R. Schyster tearing up
Tatanka's headdress, the various "
Undertaker sightings" (during the Undertaker vs. Undertaker storyline, leading up to
SummerSlam 1994); and characters like
Duke "The Dumpster" Droese,
Doink the Clown, or
Thurman "Sparky" Plugg.
Raw was also one of a kind, in which they covered the unexpected, exciting moments, a prelude to the "
Attitude Era", in which it coined
Raw as "Uncut, Uncensored, Uncooked." Some of those moments include Razor Ramon losing a match unexpectedly to
Sean "The 1-2-3 Kid" Waltman, who was later known as X-Pac,
Marty Jannetty beating Shawn Michaels to win the
WWF Intercontinental Championship, and
Raw was the first WWF television program of any kind to show footage of
Lex Luger bodyslamming Yokozuna at the
USS Intrepid.
The original hosts of
Raw were
Vince McMahon,
Rob Bartlett and
"Macho Man" Randy Savage.
Sean Mooney conducted the interviews and
Bobby "The Brain" Heenan also helped contribute. In
March 1993, Rob Bartlett was dropped from the broadcasting team and was replaced by Bobby Heenan. Then on
December 6,
1993,
Gorilla Monsoon kicked Bobby Heenan out of the WWF forever. In reality, this was a
storyline between Monsoon and his close friend Heenan, who decided to leave the World Wrestling Federation in order to lighten his travel schedule and because he didn't want to take a 50
% paycut. After about a year,
Raw moved out of the Manhattan Center and traveled to various regular Federation venues in the United States.
The Monday Night Wars
In 1995,
World Championship Wrestling (WCW) began airing its new wrestling show,
Monday Nitro, live each week on TNT. Raw and Nitro went head-to-head for the first time on September 11 1995. Due to Raw's taping schedule on several occasions, WCW Vice President
Eric Bischoff, who was also an on-air personality, would frequently give away the results of WWF's taped
Raw shows on the live WCW show. Some fans also looked at
Raw taping results on the steadily-growing
Internet; as a result, this caused the
ratings of the taped
Raw episodes to be lower.
WWF Raw had a live broadcast every other week to save costs, until September 1999, when ratings and pay-per-view buy rate increased, allowing them to justify doing a weekly live show.
At the start of the ratings war in 1995 through to mid-1996,
Raw and
Nitro exchanged victories over each other in a closely contested rivalry. Beginning in mid-1996, however, thanks primarily to the
nWo angle,
Monday Nitro started a ratings win-streak that lasted for eighty-three continuous weeks, ending on
April 13 1998.
Raw is War
On
February 3,
1997,
Monday Night Raw went to a two hour format, as the
Attitude Era was starting to come in full stream in the WWF. In an attempt to break the momentum of what had turned into ratings domination by WCW's competing
Monday Nitro,
Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) was brought in as
Jerry Lawler "challenged" ECW on
February 17,
1997. In an episode where
Raw returned to the Manhattan Center, the "challenge" answered on the following week's show with
Taz,
Mikey Whipwreck,
Sabu,
Tommy Dreamer,
D-Von Dudley, and
the Sandman. ECW owner
Paul Heyman did a call-in interview on
Raw the week after that.
Throughout 1997, there were more and more controversial elements in
Raw and WWF programming such as the
Nation of Domination, and the
D-Generation X "racial graffiti" storyline designed to "implicate
Bret Hart's '
the Hart Foundation'", and the "XXX Files" series.
On March 10, 1997,
Monday Night Raw officially became
Raw is War. The March 17, 1997 episode featured a heated
Bret Hart/Vince McMahon ringside altercation (that unknowingly foreshadowed
events in November) with profanity normally unheard on TV.
Brian Pillman did a series of "XXX Files" segments with
Terri Runnels, which further "pushed the envelope". These segments ended prematurely with the September 29, 1997 episode of
Raw, after the death of Pillman on October 5, 1997 due to hereditary heart problems.
After
WrestleMania XIV in
March 1998, the WWF regained the lead in the Monday Night Wars with its new "WWF Attitude" brand, led in particular by rising stars
Steve Austin,
The Rock and
Mankind. The classic
feud between the
villainous WWF Chairman Vince McMahon (who was re-imagined and re-branded from the color commentator into the evil company chairman character Mr. McMahon after the real-life
Montreal Screwjob incident) and
fan favorite Steve Austin (who had been released by Bischoff in the summer of
1995 for not being marketable) caught the imaginations of fans. The
April 13,
1998 episode of
Raw, headlined by a match between Austin and McMahon, marked the first time that WCW had lost the head-to-head Monday night
ratings battle in the 84 weeks since 1996.
While
Raw was taking a new approach to programming,
Nitro would start producing lackluster shows with the same storylines. Older stars such as Hogan and Nash frequented the main events, while younger talent such as
Chris Jericho,
Chris Benoit and
Eddie Guerrero were not given opportunities to advance, and the only newcomers elevated to main-event status at this time were
Bill Goldberg and
Diamond Dallas Page.
Meanwhile, on
Raw, fans were immersed in the feud between WWF owner Vince McMahon and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. New talent such as
Triple H and his
D-Generation X faction, Mankind and The Rock were elevated to main event status on the WWF's program. Superstars such as Kane, Val Venis, Goldust, etc. were coming through the ranks and exposing the WWF as the place where new talent comes through unlike the WCW counterpart. Things were so heated between the two programs that, when both shows were in
the same area on the same night (
Raw in
Hampton, Virginia,
Nitro in
Norfolk), D-X was sent to film a "war" segment at the
Norfolk Scope where they berated WCW and interviewed fans on camera who stated that they received their
Nitro tickets for free (presumably in an attempt by WCW to pack the arena as full as possible due to low ticket sales).
On
January 4,
1999. Mick Foley, who had wrestled for WCW during the early 1990s as Cactus Jack, won the WWF Title as Mankind on
Raw. On orders from Bischoff,
Nitro announcer
Tony Schiavone gave away this previously taped result on the live
Nitro, and then sarcastically added
"that'll sure put some butts in the seats"; over 600,000 viewers changed channels to watch
Raw. This was also the night that
Nitro aired a WCW World Championship match in which
Kevin Nash blatantly laid down for
Hulk Hogan after Hogan
poked him in the chest. The next week, and for months after, many fans in the
Raw audience brought signs which read,
"Mick Foley put my ass in this seat!"
The end of the Wars
A new television contract with Viacom led to a WWF change in the broadcast. On
September 25 2000,
Raw moved from the USA Network to
TNN (which later became
Spike TV).
WCW's sharp decline in revenue and ratings led to Time Warner's sale of the company to the WWF in 2001. The final edition of
Nitro aired on
March 26 2001. The show began with Vince McMahon making a short statement about his recent purchase of WCW and ended with a simulcast on
Raw and on TNN with an appearance by Vince's son
Shane McMahon on
Nitro. Shane interrupted his father's gloating over the WCW purchase to explain that Shane was the one who actually owned WCW, setting up what become the WWF's "
Invasion" storyline.
The
Raw is War logo and name were retired in September 2001, following the
September 11, 2001 attacks and sensitivity over the word
war. It also symbolized that professional wrestling's "Monday Night Wars" were over.
Brand Extension
In early to mid-
2002, WWE underwent a process they called the "Brand Extension". WWE divided itself into two "de facto" wrestling promotions with separate rosters, storylines and authority figures. Raw and SmackDown! would host each division, give its name to the division and essentially compete against each other. The split was a result of WWF purchasing their two biggest competitors,
WCW and
ECW. The brand extension was publicly announced during a telecast of
WWF Raw on
March 25 2002, and became official the next day.
Wrestlers now would become show-exclusive, wrestling for their specific show only. At the time this excluded the
WWE Undisputed Championship and
WWE Women's Championship, as those WWE titles would be defended on both shows. In
August 2002, WWE Undisputed Champion
Brock Lesnar refused to defend the title on
Raw, in effect causing his title to become exclusive to
SmackDown! The following week on Raw, General Manager Eric Bischoff awarded a newly instated
World Heavyweight Championship to Raw's designated #1 contender,
Triple H. Due to the fact that since the WWE Undisputed Championship was now SmackDown! exclusive it was no longer seen as "undisputed". Following this, the
WWE Women's Championship soon became Raw-exclusive as well. As a result of the Brand Extension, an annual "
draft lottery" was instituted to exchange members of each roster and generally refresh the lineups.
WWE Raw claimed to have earned the distinction of having the most original episodes of any fictional weekly program on
August 2,
2005 when it broadcasted the 636th episode. It was said to have took the place of
Gunsmoke, which held that distinction. However, under the criteria WWE used to make this claim, the actual record would be held by the show
Georgia Championship Wrestling, which ran continuously on Saturday evenings on
TBS between
1972 and
1984.
Return to USA Network
On
March 10 2005,
Viacom and
WWE decided not to go on with the agreement with
Spike TV, making it so
Raw and other
WWE programs on the network would cease when their deal expired in
September 2005. On
April 4 2005, WWE announced a 3-year deal with
NBC Universal to bring
Raw back to its former home, the
USA Network, with 2 yearly specials on
NBC and a
Spanish Raw on
Telemundo. On the same week as
Raw's re-debut on USA,
Spike TV scheduled
Ultimate Fighting Championship's live
Ultimate Fight Night in
Raw's old timeslot in an attempt to go head-to-head with
Raw.
The show's first night back on USA was billed as the "WWE Homecoming" and featured the return of former
WWE Champions such as
Hulk Hogan,
Steve Austin,
Mick Foley,
Triple H and
Vince McMahon along with cameos from legends such as
Roddy Piper,
Jimmy Hart,
Jimmy Snuka and
Harley Race. WWE Homecoming was three hours long — the longest an episode of
Raw has ever run in its 12-year history. USA also showed
Raw Exposed, an hour of the best moments of
Raw during its previous run on USA.
WWE announced that
Raw received its highest ratings in three years, gaining close to six million viewers.
The following week,
Vince McMahon fired Jim Ross for not helping after
Steve Austin gave him and his entire family the
Stone Cold Stunner.
Jonathan Coachman, the second analyst at the table, took over Ross's duties as play-by-play for two weeks until former
ECW announcer
Joey Styles was hired.
2006
On the
May 1,
2006 edition of
Raw,
Joey Styles announced he was quitting (
kayfabe). His vacating of the announcer position set the stage for Jim Ross to return to Raw's commentary booth, thus ending the storyline where Ross got fired by
Linda McMahon. This freed Styles to become a commentator for the
ECW brand when it launched in June.
In Canada, after an 11 year run on
TSN,
Raw moved to rival sports broadcaster The Score after it was announced that TSN would be carrying Monday Night Football' for the 2006 season. This also meant that Canadian viewers would be watching via tape-delay, as
The Score didn't broadcast
Raw live at first, but in 2007, started airing the show live.
During the
September 25,
2006 episode of
Raw in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the opening of
Raw suffered a blackout. Spotlights were the only lights running in the house. Power in the presentation was later restored. Another similar moment happened back on
May 26 1996 in
Florence, South Carolina for WWF, when a major thunderstorm hit the
Florence Civic Center causing major chaos for the PPV. That Tuesday,, returned to
North Charleston, South Carolina to finish out three matches that were not shown because of the lost power feed.
On
October 9,
2006,
Raw held a three hour season premiere called the "Raw Family Reunion", where the Raw brand debuted a new logo and theme song,
Papa Roach's "
...To Be Loved". The episode also featured talent from the SmackDown! and ECW brands. Later that month, on October 23
Raw aired its 700th episode, making it the longest running weekly entertainment show, without a
hiatus, in television history.
2007
On
June 25,
2007,
Raw was scheduled in
Corpus Christi, Texas to be a three-hour special memorial show for the (
kayfabe) death of the
Mr. McMahon character. Two weeks earlier, the show had broadcast an angle in which Mr.McMahon was murdered by a bomb planted within his limosine. The 'Mr. McMahon' tribute was cancelled on the day it was due to air after it was learned that current superstar Chris Benoit and family were found dead as well. The show then became a three-hour tribute to Chris Benoit. What made this tribute different from others (for example Eddie Guerrero and Owen Hart) was that the show had no original matches and no live audience. Instead, the three-hour show aired highlights from the WWE DVD 'Hard Knocks: The Chris Benoit Story', and a selection of Benoit's most famous matches. Several wrestlers paid tribute in the form of real interviews about him, and Vince McMahon broke character to address the viewers about what had happened. However, when the facts of Benoit's death came to light, WWE pulled this episode from international markets which aired
Raw on a
tape delay basis. Several channels announced the episode was being withheld for legal reasons. A substitute
Raw, hosted by
Todd Grisham from WWE Studios, was created featuring recaps of John Cena's WWE Undisputed championship victories, mainly the ones that had occured over the past year. The episode started with a message from Vince McMahon which originally aired on the June 26 edition of
ECW. Some countries that received WWE programing up to three weeks late had all Chris Benoit matches edited out. The WWE even removed all Chris Benoit matches and interviews from the 'WWE 24/7' service.
On
December 10 2007 Raw celebrated its 15th anniversary in a three-hour spectacular on the USA Network with the returns of
Stone Cold Steve Austin,
Rob Van Dam,
The Godfather,
Steve Blackman,
Howard Finkel,
Ted DiBiase,
Eric Bischoff,
Marty Jannetty,
Gangrel,
Trish Stratus,
Lita,
Sunny,
Hulk Hogan and
Mick Foley (as Mankind) among others. Along with several reunions of former tag teams and also included a 15-man "15 Years of Raw"
battle royal. The Raw 15th Anniversary DVD was also released which featured some of the most memorable moments in Raw history.
2008
WWE began their 2008 year with a new HD set, which consisted of more than 1,000,000
LEDs. The introduction of this new set retired the old set, which was used from April 2002 to January 2008. Raw's first show in HD was held in the Hapmton Coliseum in
Hampton, Virginia.
Production
As of 2008,
Raw airs live on Monday evenings on the USA Network (in the USA),
The Score in Canada and on
Sky Sports 3 in
Great Britain, though it's occasionally taped and placed on a
broadcast delay depending on what circumstances dictate. The theme song for the Raw brand is "
...To Be Loved" by
Papa Roach, which has been used for the Raw brand since
October 9 2006.
Since
March 10 1997, broadcasts of
Raw were split into two hours and given hourly names for
television ratings purposes, with the first hour being referred to as
Raw is War and the second as
War Zone by the show's on-screen graphics. However, as of
October 1 2001, the first hour has been referred to as
Raw and the second as
Raw Zone by the show's on-screen graphics.
On
January 7 2008, WWE announced that all 3 brands (Raw,
SmackDown!, and
ECW) would be broadcast in
HD, codenamed "WWE HD" starting with Raw on January 21. WWE invested about $20 million dollars on new recording and broadcasting equipment to prepare for the move, as well as new pyrotechnics and lighting. The move replaced the Raw, SmackDown!, and ECW sets with a new
state of the art set shared by all brands.
Special episodes
On-air personalities
Champions
General Managers
1 This was a reward from Mr. McMahon to Bischoff for his refereeing job at Cyber Sunday.
2 On May 29 2006, Mr. McMahon made Jonathan Coachman his Executive Assistant. Upon doing so McMahon stated "No one could replace me as GM", in essence giving Coachman GM powers under a new title. Was officially named Interim GM by the McMahon family following Vince McMahon's limo incident.
3 On August 6 2007, Mr. McMahon announced that an over the top rope battle royal featuring other participants from the Raw roster would determine a new GM for Raw. William Regal won the battle royal. becoming the new GM, and Jonathan Coachman became his assistant.
Commentators
| Commentators |
Year(s) |
| Vince McMahon, Randy Savage and Rob Bartlett |
January 1993-March 1993 |
| Vince McMahon and Bobby Heenan |
March 1993-December 1993 |
| Vince McMahon and Johnny Polo |
December 1993-March 1994 |
| Vince McMahon and Randy Savage |
March 1994-May 1994, August 1994 - October 1994 |
| Gorilla Monsoon and Randy Savage |
June 1994 - July 1994 |
| Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler |
October 1994-November 1994 |
| Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels |
November 1994-February 1995 |
| Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler |
February 1995-November 1997 |
| Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, and Jerry Lawler |
September 1996-November 1997 |
| Kevin Kelly and Jerry Lawler |
December 1997-March 1998 |
| Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler |
September 1996–February 2001 |
| Jim Ross and Paul Heyman |
February 2001-November 2001 |
| Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler |
November 2001-October 2005 |
| Jim Ross, Jonathan Coachman, and Jerry Lawler |
August 2005-October 2005 |
| Joey Styles, Jonathan Coachman, and Jerry Lawler |
November 2005-May 2006 |
| Joey Styles and Jerry Lawler |
November 2005-May 2006 |
| Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler |
May 2006–Present |
Ring announcers
Recurring segments
| Segment |
Type |
Host |
Years active |
Notes |
| Raw Girls |
Promotion |
N/A |
1993 |
Between matches, women otherwise uninvolved in the wrestling product carried signs bearing slogans around the Raw ring. |
| The King's Court |
Interview |
Jerry "The King" Lawler |
1993–1995 |
Inspired by Piper's Pit; also appeared on WWF Superstars |
| The Heartbreak Hotel |
Interview |
Shawn Michaels |
1994 |
Inspired by Piper's Pit; also appeared on WWF Superstars |
| The Brother Love Show |
Interview |
Brother Love |
1995 |
Returned for a brief stint. |
| The Brian Pillman XXX Files |
Interview |
Brian Pillman |
1996-1997 |
Brian Pillman XXX Files Began 1996 Ends 1997 Because Death. |
| The Love Shack |
Interview |
Dude Love |
1997–1998 |
Short-lived interview segment hosted by Dude Love |
| Highlight Reel |
Interview |
Chris Jericho |
2003–2005
2007–present |
Made regular appearances until Jericho's sabbatical from professional wrestling. Recurred in late 2007 after Jericho returned to professional wrestling. |
| White Boy Challenge |
Wrestling Challenge |
Rodney Mack |
2003 |
Challenge to Caucasian wrestlers to defeat Rodney Mack in under five-minute stipulation. Ended in the same year by Goldberg |
| WWE Diva Search |
Competition |
Jonathan Coachman (2004–2005)
The Miz (2006)
Todd Grisham (2007) |
2004–2007 |
Segments were featured weekly on Raw. |
| Masterlock Challenge |
Submission Challenge |
Chris Masters |
2005–2007 |
A challenge to any wrestler (local or active superstar on WWE roster) to break the Masterlock. Ended after it was broken by Bobby Lashley in March 2007, however it re-debuted on SmackDown!, when Masters was drafted to that brand. |
| Kurt Angle Invitational |
Wrestling Challenge |
Kurt Angle |
2005 |
Introduced to Raw, when Kurt Angle was drafted from SmackDown!. Ended on Raw, when Eugene won the invitational; Angle would end the challenge after winning his gold medals back at SummerSlam 2005. |
| Carlito's Cabana |
Interview |
Carlito |
2005-present |
Introduced to Raw after being brought from SmackDown! by Carlito. |
| Piper's Pit |
Interview |
Roddy Piper |
2005 & 2008 |
Appeared on two separate occasions, with Piper interviewing Shawn Michaels and Mick Foley in that same year. On May 19th, 2008 Piper's Pit was once again aired with Jimmy Kimmel's cousin Sal and Santino Marella. Ending with Sal and Piper throwing a cake into Marella's face and challenging Cousin Sal to a match. |
| The Cutting Edge |
Interview |
Edge |
2005–2007 |
Launched by Edge; used only for special occasions. Occasionally seen on SmackDown! and ECW after Edge was moved there. |
| Matt Striker's Classroom |
Interview/Other |
Matt Striker |
2005–2006 |
In this segment, Striker acts as a teacher (his former real-life profession) and insults the audience's intellectual capacity. The segment transferred to ECW when Striker was moved to that brand. |
| Kiss Cam |
Other |
Maria |
2005–present |
This segment involves the host trying to persuade random people in the audience to kiss when they see their faces on the titantron within a heart shaped graphic. The most frequent host of Kiss Cam is Maria, although others on the Raw brand have hosted the popular segment such as, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan. |
A.M. Raw
WWE A.M. Raw is a Saturday night (Sunday morning) show that airs on the
USA Network at 2 a.m. ET. It features segments from the latest episode of
Raw with a ticker along the bottom section of the screen that provides information about WWE, including trivia and live event news.
A.M. Raw debuted at its current time of 9 a.m. on Saturday morning. For a short period, however, it was moved to Sunday mornings at 2 a.m., until
November 11 2006. It was returned to its current Saturday morning timeslot while also continuing to air at 2 a.m.. However, it did gather higher ratings in the Sunday morning timeslot than it had with its previous Saturday 9 a.m. timeslot.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Wwe Raw'.
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