Show History
It has been known by many names, including: (taken from The IMDB)
- "Monday Night Raw" (1997) (USA)
- "WWE Raw Is War" (2002) (USA) (new title)
- "WWF Raw Is War" (1997) (USA)
- "WWF Raw" (2001) (USA) (new title)
- "WWF Warzone" (1997) (USA) (second part title)
As of February 2004, the official title is WWE Monday Night RAW.
RAW has a Sunday sister show titled WWE Sunday Night HEAT, which is also aired on Spike TV at 7pm EST.
RAW has previously been aired on USA Network. The only networks to have aired RAW are USA Network and TNN/Spike TV.
The current RAW is the successor to "WWF Monday Night RAW", which first aired in 1993 on USA Network. 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. RAW originated from a small New York City theater, the Manhattan Center, 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 WWF, and taped shows began airing every other week. Eventually, RAW aired live shows only about once per month, with the other shows being taped.
WCW, with the deep pockets of Ted Turner backing the promotion, then began Monday Nitro, which aired live each week. On several occasions, WCW head Eric Bischoff, who was also an on-air personality, gave away the results of WWF's taped RAW shows on the live WCW show. Under this pressure, the WWF started presenting RAW live every week, and has continued with live shows ever since, even after the demise of WCW. However, RAW 's sister show, Smackdown, has yet to be shown live.
The Brand Extension
In early to mid 2002, World Wrestling Entertainment underwent something they called the Brand Extension. In a nutshell, this meant that the two WWE Television shows (RAW and Smackdown) would become competition for each other. This came about when the then WWF purchased their two biggest competitors, WCW and ECW.
The Brand Extension would bring about a change like nothing the WWF/WWE has seen before. Wrestlers would become show exclusive, wrestling for their specific show only. This at the time excluded the champions as originally, the WWF/WWE titles would be defended on both shows. However, in later 2002, Brock Lesnar, the at the time WWE World Champion, refused to defend the title on RAW, causing the title the become Smackdown exclusive. Following that, both shows then got their own exclusive titles. The current RAW titles are listed below.
The Current RAW Titles
