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WWE RAW is the Monday night professional wrestling show for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It airs live on USA Network in the United States every Monday night, as well as in Canada on TSN (moving to The Score on August 7, 2006 *), and in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland on Sky Sports. It broadcasts on tape delay in Pakistan and India on Ten Sports, in Portugal on SIC Radical, in Finland on SubTV, in Australia on FOX8, in New Zealand on SKY 1, and in Chile on Chilevisión. RAW is generally seen as WWE's flagship program over its sister programmes, Friday Night SmackDown! and ECW, due to its longer history and its preference over SmackDown! in major pay-per-views such as WrestleMania.

The program is usually two hours long. Beginning in 1997, the two hours of RAW had different names for television ratings purposes, so the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF) could demand higher advertising charges for the more-watched second hour. Prior to September 11, 2001, the two hours were known as RAW is WAR and The War Zone, as WAR is the reverse of RAW. References to WAR were eliminated after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Then the World Wrestling Federation began calling the first hour simply WWF RAW and the second hour as The RAW Zone. When the change was made, the entire program was just referred to as WWF RAW (and later WWE RAW) on-camera. However, it is still referred, (on Superstar nameplates at the bottom of the screen, and the city in the corner) in the first hour as RAW and in the second hour as RAW ZONE.

Occasionally, RAW is aired on same-day tape delay when WWE is on an overseas tour.

Show 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.

RAW originated from the Manhattan Center (now Hammerstein Ballroom), 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 cartoon style. For instance, there were moments such as Irwin R. Schyster tearing up Tatanka's headdress, the various "Undertaker sightings"; 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, Uncooked, Uncensored." 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 WWE Intercontinental Title, and RAW was the first WWE television program of any kind to show footage of Lex Luger bodyslamming Yokozuna at the U.S.S. Intrepid.

The original hosts of RAW were Vince McMahon, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, and Rob Bartlett. Sean Mooney conducted the interviews and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan also helped contribute. Later in 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. RAW and WCW Monday 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, gave away the results of WWF's taped RAW shows on the live WCW show (a tactic that later backfired). Some fans also looked at RAW taping results on the steadily-growing Internet; as a result, this sometimes hurt the ratings of the taped RAW episodes.

A live television wrestling show cost about $500,000 to run, so the WWF could only afford to present RAW live every other week until September 1999, when, thanks to ratings and pay-per-view buy rate successes, they could afford to do a weekly live show. The wealth of owner Ted Turner allowed WCW's Nitro to be live every week, even when the company was losing millions of dollars in 2000.

At the start of the ratings war in 1995 though to mid-1996 RAW and Nitro would exchange victories over each over in a closely contested rivalry. However, beginning in mid-1996, thanks primarily to the nWo angle, Monday Nitro started a ratings win-streak that lasted for 83 continuous weeks, ending on April 13, 1998.

"Pillman's Got a Gun"
On the November 4, 1996 episode of RAW, the WWF aired the infamous Pillman's Got a Gun angle with the feuding Steve Austin and Brian Pillman where Austin visit an injured Pillman at home. Austin was attacked by Pillman's friends as soon as he arrived, but soon subdued them. He then proceeded to break into Pillman's home but Pillman responded by producing a 9mm Glock and pointing it at a hesitant Austin. The camera feed was then disrupted, with the scene fading to black. The on-scene director contacted commentator Vince McMahon and reported that he had heard "a couple explosions." The transmission was restored later showing Pillman's friends dragging Austin from the house in a scene where Pillman screamed "That son of a bitch has got this coming! Let him go! I'm going to kill that son of a bitch! Get out of the f***ing way!" The "f-ing way" comment was not bleeped and was clearly noticeable which meant that the following week the WWF had to apologize for the incident in order to remain on the USA Network. Pillman also had to apologize for the comment as well, saying that it was not usual for him to say that.

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 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 '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 and drug use.

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 "Stone Cold" 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) and fan favorite Steve Austin (who, ironically, 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 newcomer elevated to main-event status at this time was Bill Goldberg.

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. 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 fans who had come to see Nitro.

Eric Bischoff's tactic of giving away RAW's results on live editions of Nitro backfired 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. Nitro announcer Tony Schiavone sarcastically said "that'll sure put some butts in the seats"; over 600,000 viewers changed channels to watch RAW. 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!"

From February 8, 1999, RAW continually won the ratings war against Nitro and never suffered a loss after that.

The End of the Wars
On September 25, 2000, RAW moved network from the USA Network over to TNN (which later became Spike TV).

WCW's sharp decline in revenue and ratings would lead 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 on TNN with an appearance by Vince's son Shane McMahon on Nitro. Shane would interrupt his father's gloating over the WCW purchase to explain that Shane was the one who actually owned WCW, setting up what would now become the WWF's infamous "Invasion" storyline.

The RAW is WAR logo and name were retired in September 2001, following that month's terrorist attacks and sensitivity over the word "war" (as used in "war on terrorism"); 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 WWE (then known as WWF) purchasing their two biggest competitors, WCW and ECW.

The Brand Extension would bring about a change like nothing the WWF/WWE had seen before. Wrestlers would become show-exclusive, wrestling for their specific show only. At the time this excluded the WWE Undisputed Champion and WWE Women's Champion, as those WWF/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 (or reinstated) World Heavyweight Title, with a design similar to the WCW World Heavyweight Championship belt, to RAW's designated #1 contender, Triple H.

The WWE Women's Championship is RAW-exclusive, after being mentioned in a backstage skit with then SmackDown! General Manager Stephanie McMahon on a September 2002 edition of SmackDown! There has been recent speculation that it would be defended on both programs.

Following the Brand Extension, an annual "draft lottery" was instituted to exchange members of each roster and generally refresh the lineups. The 2005 WWE Draft Lottery made an especially huge impact on the show. RAW drafted several major SmackDown! stars, including WWE Champion John Cena, Kurt Angle, Carlito, who won the Intercontinental Title in his first match on RAW, the Big Show, and Rob Van Dam. But they lost Chris Benoit, Randy Orton, Muhammad Hassan (w/ Khosrow Daivari), Christian and World Heavyweight Champion Batista to the draft. However both Hassan & Christian later left the company. Kurt Angle would eventually jump back to SmackDown!

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 programming 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 two yearly specials on NBC and a Spanish RAW on Telemundo. * On the same week as RAW's redebut 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, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Mick Foley, Triple H and Vince McMahon along with cameos from legends such as Roddy Piper, Jimmy Hart, "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka and Harley Race. The 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 was named as Ross' replacement, but after two weeks, he was replaced by former ECW announcer Joey Styles.

Since its return to the USA Network, WWE.com has hosted a new service called WWE Unlimited which streams live clips of RAW before and after the show along with clips between commercial breaks. The service has shown some exclusive segments including the heel turn of Gregory Helms. Recurring segments include the "Kiss Cam", by Diva Maria. During the segment, the camera will show two audience members and they kiss, and WWE Unlimited Trivia, hosted by backstage announcer Todd Grisham, in which he asks three fans in the front row a question about WWE history in that city.

RAW is sometimes taped alongside SmackDown! on a Sunday, in what is called a "WWE Supershow". The November 14, 2005 episode was one such "supershow" - this was taped on the day Eddie Guerrero died in his Minneapolis hotel room. Because of this, both RAW and SmackDown! events were turned into tribute shows for Guerrero.

On the December 5, 2005 edition of RAW, WWE Chairman, Vince McMahon held the Trial of Eric Bischoff, with Vince himself as the judge. Ultimately, McMahon delivered his snarling trademark phrase, "YOUUUUU'RE FIIIRED!!!", effectively ending Bischoff's tenure as RAW's General Manager. Then WWE Champion John Cena aided McMahon in “taking out the trash” by delivering his "F-U" move to the former General Manager. Judge McMahon himself then tossed Bischoff into a garbage dumpster and drove him out of the arena.

On January 9, 2006, RAW claimed they would became the first sports program to air "live sex", between Edge and Lita on a bed placed in the ring. Unfortunately for the two, Ric Flair and John Cena came to ruin the "party", but WWE announced that RAW had a 16% ratings boost from the previous week, with the live sex segment being the highest rated segment of the night.

On February 16, 2006, unusually, RAW was broadcast taped in the United States on a Thursday night. This was due to USA Network's traditional coverage of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. However, in Canada and the United Kingdom, that episode of RAW was shown live on the Monday night as usual.

On the May 1, 2006 edition of RAW, Joey Styles announced he was quitting by delivering a hard-hitting shoot-style promo in which he bashed Vince McMahon, WWE, sports entertainment, and the fact that people "buy into this crap." 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, when he was in fact due for a colon surgery.

On the July 3, 2006 , edition of RAW Edge won the WWE Championship, marking the first time the championship has changed hands on RAW since 2001.

A.M. RAW
WWE A.M. RAW is the Sunday morning professional wrestling show for World Wrestling Entertainment that debuted on the USA Network on October 8, 2005 at 9 a.m. ET. It features segments from the previous edition RAW along with a ticker on the bottom part of the screen providing information about WWE, including trivia and live event news. A.M. RAW currently airs at 2 a.m. on Sunday mornings. It has garnered surprisingly higher ratings in this timeslot than in it's previous timeslot of 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings.

Current champions

Notes:

  • The WWE Championship became RAW-exclusive after Edge defeated then-champion Rob Van Dam (who held the belt on ECW) in a Triple Threat match on July 3, 2006.

  • The WWE recognizes all five members of the Spirit Squad as the World Tag Team Champions.

Recurring segments

In addition to wrestling matches and backstage vignettes, RAW has also aired several recurring segments as part of its program. From its inception in 1993, the show featured the "RAW Girls"; non-wrestling women who would carry signs around the ring before matches, each with a clever way of promoting the show (For example: "Open wide and say RAW!"), however, the RAW Girls would be eventually phased out. From 1993 through 1995, Jerry "The King" Lawler hosted The King's Court, an interview segment inspired by Piper's Pit from years prior. In 1998, Dude Love hosted a short-lived segment entitled Dude's Love Shack; however, when Steve Austin destroyed the set, the segment was abandoned. In 2003, Chris Jericho's Highlight Reel was the RAW equivalent of the Piper's Pit segments airing on SmackDown! at that time. Also in that year, Rodney Mack and Theodore Long hosted the White Boy Challenge, a five minute time-limit challenge for any white wrestler to beat Mack. The challenge was eventually ended by Goldberg in the same year. 2004 saw the addition of an annual RAW Diva Search. The next year, 2005 WWE newcomer Chris Masters introduced the Masterlock Challenge soon after his debut.

The 2005 draft brought Kurt Angle and his Kurt Angle Invitational to the show, which was briefly turned into Eugene's Eugene Invitational. Carlito brought his interview segment Carlito's Cabana from SmackDown! to RAW as well. In the same year, Rowdy Roddy Piper made two guest appearances hosting a special edition of his interview segment "Piper's Pit" in which he interviewed Shawn Michaels and Mick Foley in separate segments. In December of that year, Edge launched The Cutting Edge, replacing the Cabana as RAW's interview segment. Matt Striker also hosts a segment occasionally called Matt Striker's Classroom. In this segment, he acts as a teacher (his former real-life profession) and insults the audience's intellectual inferiority

General managers and Executive Assistants

1 Upon the firing of Eric Bischoff, Vince McMahon assumed control of Monday Night RAW, pending the institution of a replacement.
2 These three were made General Managers of RAW for one night only by Eric Bischoff.
3 These four had a one-time-only opportunity at General Manager when their team won at Survivor Series 2004, while full-time General Manager Eric Bischoff was on vacation.
4 Mr. McMahon announced he would be taking the night off as GM and putting the Spirit Squad in charge.

Commentators

RAW commentators year-by-year

Year Network Play-by-Play Color Commentator Analyst Alternate PbP
1993 USA Network Vince McMahon Rob Bartlett (Jan-Mar); Bobby "The Brain" Heenan (Mar-Nov) "Macho Man" Randy Savage (Jan-Oct); Jerry Lawler (Nov-Dec)
1994 USA Vince McMahon "Macho Man" Randy Savage (Mar-Oct) Jerry Lawler (Jan-Nov); Shawn Michaels (Nov-Dec) Jim Ross
1995 USA Vince McMahon Two-Man Team Shawn Michaels (Jan-Feb); Jerry Lawler (Feb-Dec) Jim Ross
1996 USA Vince McMahon (Jan-Aug, Nov-onwards), Kevin Kelly (Aug-Nov) Jerry Lawler Jim Ross (Sep-Dec) Jim Ross
1997 USA Vince McMahon (Jan-Nov); Jim Ross (Nov-Dec) Jerry Lawler Jim Ross (Jan-Nov); Jim Cornette (Dec.); Michael Cole (Dec. {first hour only}): Kevin Kelly (Dec. {first hour only}) Jim Ross
1998 USA Jim Ross; Michael Cole (Dec.) Jerry Lawler Two-Man Team Michael Cole
1999 USA Jim Ross (Apr-Dec); Michael Cole (Jan-Apr) Jerry Lawler Two-Man Team Michael Cole
2000 USA (Jan-Sept); TNN (Sept-Dec) Jim Ross Jerry Lawler Two-Man Team
2001 TNN Jim Ross Jerry Lawler (Jan-Feb, Nov-Dec); Paul Heyman (Feb-Nov) Two-Man Team Michael Cole
2002 TNN Jim Ross Jerry Lawler Two-Man Team
2003 Spike TV Jim Ross Jerry Lawler Two-Man Team Jonathan Coachman
2004 Spike TV Jim Ross Jerry Lawler Two-Man Team Jonathan Coachman
2005 Spike TV (Jan-Sept); USA (Oct-Dec) Jim Ross (Jan-Oct); Jonathan Coachman (Oct-Nov); Joey Styles (Nov-Dec) Jerry Lawler Jonathan Coachman (Nov-Dec) Jonathan Coachman
2006 USA Joey Styles (Jan-May); Jim Ross* (May-) Jerry Lawler* Jonathan Coachman (Jan-May) Todd Grisham
* - Current

List of alternate titles

Special episodes

See also

External links

World Wrestling Entertainment television programs | 1990s TV shows in the United States | 2000s TV shows in the United States | Monday | USA Network shows | Spike TV network shows

RAW (WWE) | WWE RAW | RAW (Wrestling) | WWE・ロウ | WWE RAW | RAW | WWE RAW | WWE RAW | WWE RAW

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "WWE RAW".

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