WWE Monday Night RAW

WWE Monday Night RAW is a wrestling television program for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and is the primary broadcast of the RAW brand. WWE Monday Night RAW is generally seen as WWE's flagship program over its sister programs, SmackDown! and ECW, due to its longer history and its preference over the other brands.

It 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 Malaysia on Astro Super Sport, in New Zealand on SKY 1, in India and Pakistan on Ten Sports, in the Philippines on Jack TV and RPN, in Chile on Chilevisión, in Mexico on 52MX, in Peru on ATV, in Romania on TV Sport, in South Korea on XTM, in Spain on Sportmanía, and on AFN Xtra. Raw is also currently being aired on Etv in South Africa. Occasionally, Raw is aired on same-day tape delay when WWE is on an overseas tour.

Show history
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 1st 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 Damian Demento. The show also featured an interview with Razor Ramon.

RAW originated from the 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 cartoon 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, 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 WWF Intercontinental Championship, and RAW was the first WWF 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. 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 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 visited 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 fucking way!" The "fucking 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.

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 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. 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!"

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

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 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 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.

Wrestlers now 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!

Following 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 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, 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. 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's 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. Since mid-July 2006, WWE no longer airs WWE Unlimited footage on WWE.com during RAW broadcasts, partially due to complaints by the USA Network that WWE Unlimited would cut into ad revenue made by commercials for the network.

Raw is sometimes taped alongside SmackDown, 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 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". 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 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. This freed Styles to become a commentator for ECW 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 means that Canadian viewers will be watching via a tape-delay, as The Score does not broadcast RAW live, unlike they do in USA on the USA Network and in the U.K. on Sky Sports 3 but one hour (now 15 minutes, after a recap show from the last week) later than the live broadcast. Raw ratings have continued to stay strong, with new fan favorites and foes such as John Cena, Edge,Carlito, Randy Orton, and the reformed D-Generation X.

During the September 25, 2006 episode of RAW - the 696th Episode 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 In Your House 8: Beware of Dog, when a major thunderstorm hit the Florence Civic Center causing major chaos for the PPV. That Tuesday, Beware of Dog, 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 titled "RAW Family Reunion", where WWE debuted a new logo and theme song for RAW, Papa Roach's "...To Be Loved.". The episode also featured wrestlers from WWE's other two brands, SmackDown and ECW. All the wrestlers who appeared from SmackDown and ECW have appeared on Raw before the Family Reunion.

A.M. Raw
WWE A.M. RAW is a Saturday morning show that airs on the USA Network at 9 a.m. and 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, but for a short period, it was moved to Sunday mornings at 2 a.m., until November 11, 2006 when it was returned to its current Saturday morning timeslot while continuing to air at 2 a.m. as well. However, it did gather higher ratings in the Sunday morning timeslot than it had with its previous Saturday 9 a.m. timeslot.

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, but was later emulated in a way by WCW as the Nitro Girls. 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 late 1995, Brother Love returned for a brief stint and once again hosted The Brother Love Show. 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 made it's debut, and after initially appearing regularly, made sporadic reappearances until Jericho took a break from professional wrestling in August 2005. 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, however 2006 saw the RAW Diva Search renamed to the WWE Diva Search for all brands to participate. 2005 saw WWE newcomer Chris Masters introduce the Masterlock Challenge soon after his debut, the Masterlock wasn't officially broken until the March 19, 2007 edition of RAW by Bobby Lashley. 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 for only special occasions. 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 capacity. The segment transferred to ECW when Striker was moved to that brand.

Executive assistant
Carries the power of a General Manager as Executive Assistant when the GM is absent or delegates authority.

1This was a reward from Mr. McMahon to Bischoff for his refereeing job at Cyber Sunday

2On 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.

Production
The theme tune for WWE RAW is "...To Be Loved" by Papa Roach, (formerly "Across the Nation" by Union Underground), and is blared through the arena in which WWE RAW is being held in moments prior to the live television broadcast. Brief clips from WWE Raw broadcasts and RAW PPV events as well as brief clips of RAW superstars out of the ring are interlaced with scenes of cityscapes of Manhattan, New York. The opening montage is also shown, along with the WWE signature montage that is shown immediately before it, at live RAW events over the TitanTron to give those in the arena a glimpse of what's being aired on live TV.

From its launch in January 11, 1993, the show was known as Monday Night RAW. As of March 10, 1997 though, the two hours of RAW had different names for television ratings purposes, so the then-WWF could demand higher advertising charges for the more-watched second hour. 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 on September 17, 2001 after the September 11, 2001 attacks, changing the hour names to RAW and the RAW Zone. When the change was made, the entire program was just referred to as RAW on-camera. However, the hourly names are still referred to on the show's on-screen graphics.

On Monday, October 23, 2006; RAW aired its 700th episode, making it the longest running weekly entertainment show, without a hiatus, in television history.

Special episodes

 * WWF RAW Bowl (January 1 1996)
 * WWF RAW Championship Friday (September 6 1996)
 * WWF Thursday RAW Thursday (February 13 1997)
 * WWF RAW is Owen (May 24 1999)
 * WWE RAW X Anniversary Show (January 14 2003)
 * WWE RAW Homecoming (October 3 2005)
 * Eddie Guerrero Tribute Show (November 14 2005)
 * WWE Tribute to the Troops (December 19 2005)
 * WWE RAW Family Reunion (October 9 2006)
 * WWE 3-Hour Spectacular (December 18 2006)
 * WWE Tribute to the Troops (December 25, 2006; December 24, 2007)
 * WWE Draft 3-Hour Show (June 11 2007)
 * Chris Benoit Memorial (live telecast only) / Champions Edition (international and Telemundo/Mun2 airings only) (June 25 2007)
 * WWE RAW 15th Anniversary Spectacular (December 10 2007)