WWE Raw, also known as Monday Night Raw or simply Raw, is an American professional wrestling television program produced by WWE. Debuting on the USA Network television channel, Raw moved in September 2000 to TNN, which rebranded to Spike TV in August 2003. The show features characters from the Raw brand, to which WWE wrestlers are assigned to work and perform.
Beginning as WWF's Monday Night Raw, the program first aired on January 11, 1993, on the USA Network as a replacement for Prime Time Wrestling, which aired on the network for eight years. The original Raw was sixty minutes in length and broke new ground in televised professional wrestling.
Traditionally, wrestling shows were pre-taped on sound stages with small audiences or at large arena shows. The Raw formula was considerably different from the pre-taped weekend shows that aired at the time such as Superstars and Wrestling Challenge. Raw originated from the Grand Ballroom at the Manhattan Center, a small New York City theater, and aired live each week.
The combination of an intimate venue and live action proved to be a successful improvement. However, the weekly live schedule proved to be a financial drain on the WWF. From spring 1993 until spring 1997, Raw would tape several week's worth of episodes after a live episode had aired.
The WWF taped several weeks worth of Raw from the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie, New York in April 1993, and again in June and October. On September 4, 1995, the WWF's chief competitor World Championship Wrestling (WCW) began airing its new wrestling show, Monday Nitro, live each week on TNT, which marked the start of the Monday Night War.
Raw and Nitro went head-to-head for the first time on September 11, 1995. 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, due to the nWo angle, Nitro started a ratings win-streak that lasted for 84 consecutive weeks, ending on April 13, 1998.
On February 3, 1997, Raw went to a two-hour format, to compete with the extra hour on Nitro (which had been expanded to two hours in the spring of 1996), and by March 10, it was renamed to Raw Is War. It was also during the time Raw would be aired live more often. After WrestleMania XIV in March 1998, the WWF regained the lead in the Monday Night War with its new "WWF Attitude" brand.
On January 4, 1999, Mick Foley, who had wrestled for WCW during the early 1990s as Cactus Jack, won the WWF Championship as Mankind on Raw Is War. On orders from Eric Bischoff, Nitro announcer Tony Schiavone gave away this previously taped result on a live Nitro and then sarcastically added, "That's gonna put some butts in the seats", consequently resulting in over 600,000 viewers switching channels to Raw Is War to see the underdog capture the WWF Championship. On June 28, 2000, Viacom won the landmark deal with the WWF to move all of its WWF programs stemming from the lawsuit action against WWF from USA Network.
The new television contract and the subsequent purchase of competitor WCW led to many changes in WWF's programming content. WCW's sharp decline in revenue and ratings led to AOL Time Warner selling selected assets such as the WCW name, tape library, and contracts to the WWF in March 2001 for $3 million.
The final episode of Nitro, which aired on March 26, 2001, began with Vince McMahon making a short statement about his recent purchase of WCW and ended with a simulcast with Raw on TNN and Nitro on TNT including an appearance by Vince's son Shane. The younger McMahon 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.
Raw vs Nitro - The First Battle of The War
In March 2002, as a result of the overabundance of talent left over from the Invasion storyline, WWF instituted a process known as the "brand extension", under which Raw and SmackDown! This Raw logo has been in use since July 30, 2016, albeit with alterations. Open, which aired on USA, resulting in Raw to be moved to SciFi, a sister channel to USA, for three years.
Since 2016, the two-hour version of that week's Raw has aired on Syfy. On the August 29, 2011, episode of Raw, it was announced that performers from Raw and SmackDown were no longer exclusive to their respective brand, thus effectively dissolving the brand extension.
On July 23, 2012, Raw aired its 1,000th episode, which also began its permanent three-hour format. On January 14, 2013, Raw celebrated its 20th year on the air. On May 25, 2016, WWE reintroduced the brand split, and a new set with red ring ropes, a brand new stage, used at SummerSlam.
Furthermore, the broadcast table was moved to the entrance ramp similar to how it was in 2002-2005. On January 22, 2018, WWE celebrated the 25th anniversary of Raw with a simulcast show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and the home of the first Monday Night Raw, the Manhattan Center.
On the February 19 episode of Raw, six days before Elimination Chamber, seven participants of the men's Elimination Chamber match, Braun Strowman, Elias, Finn Bálor, John Cena, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and The Miz, were involved in a Gauntlet match that began with Reigns and Rollins.
From March 12, 2020, to August 18, 2020, WWE announced that all of its live programs would air from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida without an audience until further notice beginning with the following day's episode of SmackDown due to the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in the suspension of many professional sports leagues. On the May 25 episode of Raw, NXT trainees were added into live crowds at the Performance Center.
In August, all programming was moved to the new, state-of-the-art WWE ThunderDome inside of the Amway Center in Orlando. On January 23, 2024, TKO Group announced that Netflix would acquire the rights to Raw beginning in January 2025, in what was reported to be a 10-year deal worth $500 million per-year (roughly double the value of WWE's current agreement with NBCUniversal).
The agreement will initially cover the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Latin America, with other territories to be added in the future. The agreement also gives Netflix rights to all WWE programming outside of the United States (replacing WWE Network), including weekly shows, archive content, and live events.
While USA Network's contract for Raw was to expire in October 2024, WWE reached a short-term extension of its agreement with NBCUniversal to keep Raw on the network through the end of the year. With the move to streaming, WWE chief content officer Paul "Triple H" Levesque said that the length of the show on Netflix will be "flexible", and no longer bound to a set runtime as with shows carried on linear television.
When asked about the average runtime of each episode, he responded that "for me, the perfect show time is somewhere in the two-and-a-half-hour range. If you had asked me years ago, the two hour shows, you get into them and you don't have the real estate on that program to get everything in there you want to get in, all the stories and characters.
Raw's original set featured red, white, and blue ring-ropes, a blue ring-apron, blue steps, and a small stage made of neon light tubes. In 1995, the entrance way was changed to feature "Raw" in giant letters. Beginning on March 10, 1997, broadcasts of Raw were split into two hour-long blocks, each given its own name for television ratings purposes.
The first hour was referred to as Raw Is War, and the second became known as War Zone. These changes were reflected in television listings and, beginning with the June 9, 1997, episode, by the show's on-screen graphics. War Zone initially opened with a repeat of the Raw intro, punctuated with the War Zone logo.
In 1997, the WWF changed the color of the ring-ropes to red and began printing Raw Is War along the ring in reference to their rivalry with WCW. The stages was updated to feature a 70-foot tall large screen video wall known as the "TitanTron", which consisted of a projection screen with several metal stage trusses and a video projector. The set also initially featured curtains on each side with truss beams and lighting later bearing the "WWF Attitude" banner on the sides.
Raw moved to TNN from USA beginning with the September 25, 2000 episode. The TNN network logo was added atop the TitanTron on the December 11, 2000 episode. Beginning October 1, 2001, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, the first hour was referred to as Raw instead of Raw Is War, and the second hour was rebranded from the War Zone to the Raw Zone within the show's on-screen graphics.
The Monday Night War had ended months earlier with the WWF's purchase of the competing WCW brand. Monday Nitro, which had once gone head-to-head with Raw, aired its final show in March. WWF announcers began generally referring to the entire two-hour block as Raw on-air.
Raw updated to a new, industrial-inspired, parallelogram-shaped TitanTron in 2002. Around this time, black ring-ropes were occasionally used. Like the previous set, the TNN logo was relocated to the bottom side of the TitanTron. It was subsequently replaced by the Spike TV logo on August 11, 2003, upon network relaunch.
The 2002 set was designed by Production Designer Jason Robinson. It featured a larger TitanTron with dimensions of 55 feet wide by 25 feet tall. The expanded structure weighed about 4,000 pounds and requiring three 18,000-watt projector screens to power itself.
On October 3, 2005, as Raw returned to USA Network, the 2002 set was retained but the beams and lighting on the sides were modified. The Spike TV logo was removed from the bottom side of the TitanTron. On October 9, 2006, the show debuted a new logo and opening intro featuring "...To Be Loved" by Papa Roach as its theme song.
From November 16, 2009, to July 16, 2012, the theme song for the Raw brand was "Burn It to the Ground" by Nickelback. Prior to this, the theme song for Raw was "...To Be Loved" by Papa Roach, which had been used since October 9, 2006 and "Across The Nation" by The Union Underground which was used from April 1, 2002, to October 2, 2006.
On May 17, 2012, WWE and USA Network announced that Raw would switch to a permanent three-hour format beginning with the 1,000th episode on July 23, 2012. Since then, all three hours of the broadcast have been known solely as Raw, though they are still considered three separate programs for Nielsen ratings purposes (as indicated by the on-screen copyright notice shown near the end of each hour).
In 2010, WWE retired the red ropes for Raw after thirteen years for an all white scheme, which in 2012 became standard for all WWE programming. Beginning in mid-2014, this set would also be featured in pay-per-views. From late September through the end of October 2012, the middle rope at all WWE programming was changed to pink due to WWE's alliance with the Susan G. Komen organization for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
This was repeated in 2013, from late September to early November, and it was repeated in 2014 from September 29. On August 18, 2014, Raw switched to a full 16:9 letterbox widescreen presentation, with a down-scaled version of the native HD feed on a 4:3 SD feed.
In conjunction with this, Raw updated its graphics package, with the new WWE logo (first used with the WWE Network's launch in February) now on the lower-right corner of the screen, right next to the word, "Live". At this time, the new WWE logo began appearing on the ring's turnbuckle covers, and USA Network logo moved to the lower-left hand corner of the screen.
On March 23, 2015, WWE added a small LED board to the left side of the ring on Raw. This LED board was also used at WrestleMania 31. The LED board has since been featured on a sporadic basis, appearing in some weeks and being absent in others.
On the 1,000th episode of Raw, "The Night" by Kromestatik debuted as the theme for Raw. On the September 14, 2015 season premiere of Raw, the middle rope was colored gold. Throughout the month of October 2015, the program once again partnered with Susan G.
On July 25, 2016, the ropes returned to red, the announce table moved back to the top of the stage for the first time since 2005, and a new HD set and graphics were debuted. The new set was almost identical to the set used for SummerSlam 2012 and 2013. After some fans responded negatively to the redesign, the set was revamped four weeks later with a more elaborate and distinctive arrangement.
The new set featured the absence of a traditional TitanTron, which had been part of the Raw staging since 1997. In its place was a curved LED banner with several rows of rectangle LED lights behind it. The new set also introduced LED floor panels on the entrance ramp along with LED ring posts.
In September 2021, the ring-ropes changed color from red to white, which was also reflected on SmackDown. On November 22 of that year, an updated version of the 2019 logo was introduced, alongside new graphics. The theme song was changed to "Greatness" by Vo Williams, which remained its theme song until November 20, 2023, when it was changed to "Born to Be" by def rebel, the artist behind WWE's music input for its programming, which is performed by Supreme Madness.
In February 2022, Raw and NXT temporarily moved to Syfy in the United States due to USA Network broadcasting coverage of the 2022 Winter Olympics. Roger H. Roger H.
1,153,018) were confusingly similar and thus lacked distinctiveness from the Muscle Flex trademark, which Muscle Flex is in the process of acquiring. that it was successful in defending its In the Raw trademark against the WWE. disclosed that it was in possession of WWE Raw-labeled items that it believes directly infringe on its In the Raw trademark such as various CDs, VHS tapes, and a number of apparel items.
According to the WWE's most recent reported financial quarter in 2009, combined sales of WWE's consumer products and digital media business segments produced $40 million in global revenues. Throughout its broadcast history, the show has aired episodes that have different themes.
Some of them are yearly events such as the Slammy Awards. Others include tributes to various professional wrestlers who have recently died or retired from actively performing, as well as episodes commemorating various show milestones or anniversaries such as Raw 1000, which celebrated the 1000th broadcast.
The wrestlers featured on WWE take part in scripted feuds and storylines. The primary commentators for Raw are Michael Cole and Corey Graves.
ET on Netflix. ^ "WWE Entertainment's RAW IS WAR Delivers ... Live grades and recap from the December 22 edition of Raw on Netflix.Dec 22, 2025The December 22 edition of Raw on Netflix from the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan promised big moments during this holiday season.
Austin Theory made a wild return to WWE, revealing himself to be the masked man that has helped The Vision in recent weeks.It was unclear yet if he was joining Paul Heyman's group, but The Vision would be in attendance, fighting CM Punk and Rey Mysterio in the main event.
Asuka and Rhea Ripley collided ahead of their Women's Tag Team Championships clash on the Netflix anniversary show on January 5.Gunther promised to appear again, likely to further mock John Cena and his fans after retiring The GOAT.
Women's intercontinental champion Maxxine Dupri would be in attendance. Who would step up next to the underdog champion?This was a good chance for Raw to truly hype up the new year and the upcoming road to WrestleMania.
Asuka (w/ Kairi Sane) vs. Rhea Ripley
Last Time in Action: Asuka alongside Kairi Sane lost to Lash Legend and Nia Jax (SmackDown, December 19); Rhea Ripley alongside Damian Priest defeated Aleister Black and Zelina Vega (SmackDown, December 12).
Ripley asked an injured Iyo Sky to stay in the back during her match, but Sane came out with Asuka and got involved multiple times.The Genius of the Sky finally came out to contest Sane, but The Pirate Princess sent her injured back into the apron. As The Eradicator checked on Sky, Asuka rolled her up for three.
Ripley and Asuka fought hard to make the most of their time in this one. It was hard-hitting and engaging, even with the overuse of interference.The distraction into the roll-up finish was a forgettable end to a good match though. The Empress of Tomorrow could have won more definitively.
It was a good choice for Asuka to win. WWE has booked The Kabuki Warriors inconsistently in the past few weeks, and this gave The Empress of Tomorrow a win over a big name.Ripley and Sky are in perfect position to dethrone The Kabuki Warriors at the Netflix anniversary show, and any result that puts that in questions leads to more drama on the night of the title match.