Raw (WWE brand)
Raw is a brand of the U.S. based professional wrestling promotion WWE. The brand was first established on March 25, 2002, with a draft on "Monday Night Raw" and went into effect one week later on April 1. The brand split was discontinued in August 2011, but was brought back in July 2016. Wrestlers assigned to the Raw brand wrestle predominantly on the "Raw" television program as well as "Main Event", the seasonal "Mixed Match Challenge", and Raw branded or co-branded pay-per-view events and WWE Network events. During the first brand split, they also competed on "Heat" and on "ECW" under a talent exchange program.
WWE brand extension
After five years, a new brand extension was introduced on July 19, 2016. Raw drafted the WWE Women's Champion, the United States Champion, and the WWE Tag Team Champions, while SmackDown drafted the WWE Champion and the Intercontinental Champion; NXT champions were ineligible to be drafted. This distribution of championships remained unchanged at the Battleground pay-per-view, which took place the Sunday immediately following the draft. With the WWE Championship being defended exclusively on SmackDown, Raw commissioner Stephanie McMahon and general manager Mick Foley introduced the WWE Universal Championship to be Raw's world title. As SmackDown was lacking a tag team championship and a women's championship, Smackdown commissioner Shane McMahon and general manager Daniel Bryan introduced the SmackDown Tag Team Championship and SmackDown Women's Championship. Subsequently, the WWE Women's Championship and the WWE Tag Team Championship were renamed as the Raw Women's Championship and the Raw Tag Team Championship, respectively. With this, each brand had a world championship, a secondary championship, a tag team championship, and a women's championship: the Universal, United States, Raw Tag Team, and Raw Women's on Raw, and the World, Intercontinental, SmackDown Tag Team, and SmackDown Women's on SmackDown. However, since Raw became the exclusive home of WWE's revived cruiserweight division, they also created a new WWE Cruiserweight Championship. Beginning November 29, 2016, in addition to "Raw", the Cruiserweight Championship is defended on the cruiserweight-exclusive show, "205 Live". The WWE United Kingdom Championship was unveiled in December 2016 with its inaugural holder determined in January 2017. The title is the major championship for the United Kingdom-based NXT spinoff, NXT UK.