Show name | WWE Raw |
---|---|
Creator | Vince McMahon |
Executive producer | Kevin Dunn |
Producer | Arn AndersonGerald Brisco |
Format | Sports entertainmentProfessional wrestling |
Picture format | 480i (SDTV),1080i (HDTV) |
Camera | Multicamera setup |
Runtime | Approximately 2 hours 8 minutes per episode(1 hour 35 minutes and commercials) |
Company | WWE |
Starring | Raw Brand |
Country | United States |
Network | USA Network (1993–2000, 2005 – present),TNN/Spike TV (2000–2005) |
First aired | |
Num episodes | 942 (as of June 20, 2011) |
Opentheme | "Burn It to the Ground" by Nickelback |
Related | WWE SmackDownWWE SuperstarsWWE NXT |
Website | http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw |
(left) and Mr. Fuji on the very first episode of Monday Night Raw]] 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, events occurred such as Irwin R. Schyster tearing up Tatanka's headdress, the various "Undertaker sightings" in mid-1994 and characters like Duke "The Dumpster" Droese, Doink the Clown, or Bob "Spark Plugg" Holly.
Raw, uniquely in its day, covered the unexpected, exciting moments, a prelude to "the Attitude Era", in which it coined Raw as "Uncut, Uncensored, Uncooked." 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 also worked as 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; this caused the ratings of the taped Raw episodes to decrease.
Until September 1999 WWF Raw broadcast live every other week to save costs, but 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 84 continuous weeks, ending on April 13, 1998.
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 a live Nitro, and then sarcastically added "that'll sure put some butts in the seats" consequently resulting in over 600,000 viewers switching channels to watch Raw. This was also the night that Nitro aired a WCW World Heavyweight 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!" On September 27, 1999, Mick Foley helped WWF Raw achieve some of its highest ratings ever with a segment featuring himself (as Mankind) and The Rock. The segment called "This is Your Life" included Mankind bringing out people from The Rock's past, such as a home economics teacher, gym teacher and old high school girlfriend. The "This is Your Life" segment remains one of the highest rated segments in Raw viewership history, with an 8.4 rating.
A new television contract with Viacom led to changes in WWF broadcasting. On September 25, 2000, Raw moved from the USA Network to TNN (which later became Spike TV). Shane interrupted his father's gloating over the WCW purchase to explain that Shane was the one who actually owned WCW, setting up what became the WWF's "Invasion" storyline.
The RAW IS WAR logo and name were retired in September 2001, following the September 11 attacks and sensitivity over the word war, and because the Monday Night Wars were "over".
In early to mid-2002, WWF underwent a process they called the "Brand Extension".
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 number one contender, Triple H. Because 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 taken the place of Gunsmoke, which held that distinction.
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.
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, Shawn Michaels, Mick Foley, Triple H and Vince McMahon along with cameos from legends such as Roddy Piper, Jimmy Hart, Jimmy Snuka and Harley Race. Also, it featured a 30 minutes Iron Match between Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle.
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, thus the opening match (between Lita and Candice Michelle) was contested in the dark. 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.
That October, 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, according to the WWE making it the longest running weekly entertainment show, without a hiatus, in television history. As a result of the 2009 WWE Draft in April, WWE Champion Triple H was drafted to the Raw brand, while the World Heavyweight Championship moved to the Raw brand after Edge lost the title to John Cena at WrestleMania XXV. SmackDown would regain the World Heavyweight Championship at Backlash (2009) when Edge defeated John Cena to win the championship. In addition, SmackDown and Raw would exchange both women-exclusive championships with Raw gaining the WWE Divas Championship and SmackDown gaining the WWE Women's Championship. The next week, Vince McMahon repurchased Raw from Donald Trump and announced that a "Guest star" initiative originally introduced by Trump in response to the position of General Manager being vacant would go in effect on June 29. Each weekly guest host is usually either a WWE Hall of Famer, a former or returning talent, or other celebrity. The guest host or hostess assumes the role of a brand General Manager, serving as Raw's authority figure for the day. The following year, it was announced that with Vickie Guerrero (and subsequently Bret Hart) becoming the new full time GM, the guest stars (while continuing to appear) would no longer have booking power.
In 2010, TNA Impact!, which normally airs on Thursdays,went head to head with Raw in a three-hour live broadcast. This would be the first time since March 2001 that two major wrestling promotions would go head-to-head in a Monday night ratings competition. TNA promoted the debut of Hulk Hogan leading to the broadcast. WWE countered by announcing the return of Bret Hart, who hadn’t appeared with the company since the Montreal Screwjob in 1997. The ratings showed that, much like the first Monday Night War, Raw came out on top, averaging 5.6 million viewers while iMPACT! was watched by 3 million viewers for the Hulk Hogan segment,though towards the end of the show the viewership declined to 2.2 million viewers.
On March 8, 2010, Impact! permanently moved to Monday nights to compete head-to-head with Raw. After declining ratings, Spike executives announced that starting April 5, Impact! would air an hour earlier than Raw. However Impact! was moved back to Thursdays as the 'New Monday Night Wars' resulted in Raw getting better ratings and audience of TNA getting reduced. Since then on April 19, 2010, many of the WWE Raw superstars were stranded in Belfast due to the ash cloud from Eyjafjallajökull (a volcano in Iceland) hovering over most of Europe and causing many flights to be put on hold. Former ring announcer Lilian Garcia announced that night while the SmackDown roster took part in production of the Raw episode. The following month on May 17, 2010, Raw aired its second overall commercial free episode from the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
That summer on August 30, 2010, Raw aired its 900th episode, SmackDown superstars and NXT rookies also appeared on this milestone episode. It featured The Undertaker vs Bret Hart for the first time in almost 14 years. That November, Raw went "Old School" for one night with the old ring and titantron designs. This episode featured WWE Legends "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, Mae Young, The Million Dollar Man, Ron Simmons, The Iron Sheik and many more. Mark Henry briefly returned to his "Sexual Chocolate" gimmick in honor of Raw going "Old School".
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. However, both hours are known as just "Raw" on-air.
On January 7, 2008, WWE announced that all brands (Raw, SmackDown and formerly, ECW) would be broadcast in HD, codenamed "WWE HD" starting with Raw on January 21. WWE invested an estimated $20 million 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. The stage has been altered since 2008, but most of the stage stays the same.
(*) - Mathews became the alternate color commentator on Raw beginning December 27, 2010 due to Lawler's increased in-ring schedule (Lawler would continue as commentator when he wasn't wrestling). On March 14, 2011, Raw began using a full time three man team with Cole announcing from his own separate table ("The Cole Mine"). Ross has also returned to the broadcast table since making his broadcast return at WrestleMania XXVII and the four announcers worked in rotating three man shifts. This ended on the May 23, 2011 edition of Raw when Michael Cole returned to the normal announce table.
(**) - From November 1997 until July 1998 Jim Ross served as play by play commentator for both hours of Raw, with the Michael Cole/Kevin Kelly tandem (later just Cole) as color commentator for the first hour (Raw is War), with Jerry Lawler taking over for the second hour (The War Zone).
Show name | WWE A.M. Raw |
---|---|
Format | Professional wrestling |
Picture format | 480i (SDTV)1080i (HDTV) |
Creator | Vince McMahon |
Starring | Raw brand |
Opentheme | "Burn It to the Ground" by Nickelback |
Closetheme | "Burn It to the Ground" by Nickelback |
Country | United States |
Network | USA Network |
Runtime | 1 hour |
First aired | |
Last aired | present |
Num episodes | 266(as of May 29, 2011) |
Status | Opened |
Website | http://www.wwe.com/shows/amraw |
WWE A.M. Raw, a Saturday night/Sunday morning show, airs on the USA Network at 2 a.m. ET. It features segments from the latest episode of WWE Raw. A.M. Raw also features news updates from all across the WWE. The show mostly airs the main event matches and promos that aired on Raw (some of which are abridged for timing purposes), and shows the event schedule for the upcoming weeks.
{| border="2" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #FCFDFF; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size:100%;" !Country || Network || Ref |- |Arab World(Live broadcast) |AD Sport 6 HD | |- |Arab World |MBC Action | |- |Argentina |(none) | |- |Australia |Fox8 | |- |Bangladesh |TEN Sports | |- |Belgium |AB3 | |- |Bhutan |TEN Sports | |- |Bulgaria |bTV Comedy | |- |Bolivia |Red PAT | |- |Bosnia and Herzegovina |OBN | |- |Brazil |Esporte Interativo | |- |Canada |The Score and Global Quebec | |- |Chile |UCV TV | |- |People's Republic of China |VBS | |- |Costa Rica |Repretel Canal 11 | |- |- |Czech Republic |Nova Sport | |- |Ecuador |Teleamazonas | |- |El Salvador |Canal VTV | |- |France |NT1 and RTL9 | |- |Finland |MTV3 MAX | |- |Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein(Live broadcast) |Sky Deutschland | |- |Greece |Nova Sports 3 | |- |Honduras |Canal 5 | |- |India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka , Nepal and Indonesia |TEN Sports | |- |Israel |Sport 1 | |- |Italy(Live broadcast) |Sky Sport 2 | |- |Malaysia |Astro Super Sport | |- |Mexico |Canal 5, TVC Deportes & MVS Visión (52MX & MC) | |- |New Zealand |The Box | |- |Norway |TV 2 Zebra | |- |Panama |RPC Canal 4 | |- |Peru |ATV | |- |Philippines |Jack TV | |- |Poland |Extreme Sports Channel | |- |Portugal |Sport TV | |- |Romania |Sport.ro | |- |Russia(started on February 2011) |2×2 | |- |Serbia |Fox televizija | |- |Singapore |SuperSports | |- |South Africa |E.tv | |- |Spain |MARCA TV | |- |Sweden |TV10 | |- |Turkey |FOX and Eurosport | |- |Thailand |TrueVisions | |- |Ukraine |QTV | |- |United Kingdom and Ireland(Live broadcast) |Sky Sports 3 and Sky Sports HD3 | |}
Category:1993 American television series debuts Category:1990s American television series Category:2000s American television series Category:2010s American television series Category:Spike TV network shows Category:USA Network shows Raw
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