When did the WWE Network intorduce the Raw brand?
2010 WWE draft
The Brand Extension storyline was initiated in March 2002, in which WWE's Raw and SmackDown television programs were made into brands (similar to conferences within a league) to which employees were assigned to; the ECW brand additionally involved between 2006 and 2009. Since its inception, annual drafts have followed, except for in 2003. As in previous drafts that followed the Brand Extension, the purpose of the 2010 WWE Draft was to increase television ratings of WWE programming and refresh the rosters with new storylines for each brand. The 2010 WWE Draft was confirmed both by WWE and Richmond Coliseum via their websites between March and April 2010, which featured the draft eligibility of WWE employees from the Raw and SmackDown brands. The event was scheduled to take place over two days, in which the televised draft would air live on the USA Network in the United States from the Coliseum in Richmond, Virginia on the April 26 episode of "Raw". The second portion of the draft, the "supplemental draft," was originally scheduled for April 28; however, it was announced during the live broadcast that it would be held the next day on April 27 with selections being announced via WWE's website.
History of WWE Raw
On June 26, 2005, Jonathan Coachman revealed that he would be the new color commentator for "Raw", a position he held until April 24, 2006 when he left to become the "Raw" General Manager on June 11, 2007. Coachman also did the play-by-play over the next three weeks before Joey Styles revealed that he would be the new lead announcer for "Raw" on the following week after the firing of Jim Ross by Linda and Vince McMahon on October 10, 2005. The show's first night back on October 3, 2005 on the USA Network was billed as the "WWE Homecoming", a three-hour special that featured the return of former WWF/E Champions such as Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, Mick Foley, Triple H and Vince McMahon, along with cameos from legends such as Roddy Piper, Jimmy Hart, Jimmy Snuka, Harley Race and Ted DiBiase. Also, it featured a 30-minute Iron Man match between Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle. 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. On-camera, the show began to be referred to as "Monday Night Raw" again.
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 pay-per-view. 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. That October 9, 2006 episode of "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.
WWE Backlash
WWE Backlash is a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event, that is produced by WWE, a professional wrestling promotion based in Connecticut. The event was created in 1999, with its inaugural event produced as an In Your House event in April of that year. The event in 2000 was rebranded as an annual PPV event for WWE. To coincide with the brand extension, the event was made exclusive to the Raw brand in 2004. In 2007, to follow the format of WrestleMania, all PPV events became tri-branded. Extreme Rules replaced Backlash in 2010.
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008
The game is the ninth edition of the long-running "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw" (later renamed to simply "WWE") video game series based on the professional wrestling promotion World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It is the sequel to 2006's "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2007", succeeded by "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009" in 2008. It is the first WWE game to include the promotion's ECW brand. It is also the first WWE game to be available for all seventh generation video game consoles.
Elimination Chamber
The Elimination Chamber debuted at WWE's PPV event Survivor Series 2002 at Madison Square Garden. Since the inaugural match, there have been 21 other matches (22 overall) as of Elimination Chamber 2018. The Raw brand has been featured the most with ten matches, ECW has been featured in two matches, including its joint-branded match with SmackDown. The SmackDown brand has been featured in six matches including the joint-branded match with ECW. The Elimination Chamber event has featured more Elimination Chamber matches than any other pay-per-view, with thirteen matches being held. Triple H has the most number of victories with four. Chris Jericho holds the distinctions of being involved in the most number of Elimination Chamber matches to date (8) and eliminating the most wrestlers (10). Braun Strowman has the most eliminations in a single Elimination Chamber match (5).
WWE Intercontinental Championship
Over Bischoff's objections, Raw Co-General Manager Stone Cold Steve Austin reactivated the Intercontinental Championship on the May 5, 2003 episode of "Raw" and declared any former champion on the Raw roster eligible to enter a battle royal at Judgment Day for the title. Christian won the battle royal to win the championship and restore a secondary singles title for Raw wrestlers to compete for. Eventually, WWE did the same thing for SmackDown and created a separate set of titles for that brand; for its secondary title, SmackDown reactivated the United States Championship that had been unified with the Intercontinental Championship in 2001, placing the WWE name on it while claiming the lineage of the old WCW title of the same name (much as they did with the Cruiserweight Championship when that became WWE exclusive).
On October 2, 2011, at Hell in a Cell, Cody Rhodes introduced a modified version of the classic championship belt design with the white strap, with an added modern WWE "scratch logo" and other embellishments. The first brand split ended on August 29, 2011, and the title could be defended on both "Raw" and "SmackDown". On August 18, 2014, the Intercontinental Championship belt, along with all other pre-existing championship belts in WWE at the time, received a minor update, replacing the long-standing scratch logo with WWE's new logo originally used for the WWE Network. On May 31, 2015, the championship was contested for in an Elimination Chamber match for the first time.
World Tag Team Championship (WWE)
In 2002, the company was renamed WWE. Following the introduction of the WWE brand extension, where wrestlers and championships became exclusive to a WWE brand, the World Tag Team Championship became exclusive to the Raw brand, while a second WWE Tag Team Championship was established for the SmackDown brand. Both titles were unified in 2009 into the "Unified WWE Tag Team Championship", but remained independently active until the World Tag Team Championship was decommissioned in 2010 in favor of continuing the newer championship.
List of WWE pay-per-view events
Following WWE's original brand extension in 2002, the company promoted two touring rosters representing its Raw and SmackDown television programs. Aside from Insurrextion (Raw) and Rebellion (SmackDown!), all WWE pay-per-views featured both brands until June 2003. The traditional "Big Four" continued to showcase the entire roster, while the remaining pay-per-views alternated between Raw and SmackDown cards. A special ECW event in 2005 led to the creation of an ECW brand in 2006, which also received its own dedicated pay-per-view. Additional brand-exclusive events were added to the schedule, which reached its peak in 2006 with sixteen pay-per-view events (five Raw, five SmackDown, two ECW, and the original "Big Four"). In March 2007, WWE announced that all subsequent pay-per-views would feature performers from all brands. Dates were slowly removed from the pay-per-view schedule and in 2012, WWE returned to holding twelve pay-per-views a year. However, since the second brand extension in July 2016, brand-exclusive pay-per-views returned with only the "Big Four" as the only pay-per-views to feature both Raw and SmackDown brands, and some months have two pay-per-views, one for each show. Just like the previous brand extension, brand exclusive pay-per-views ended after WrestleMania 34.
WWE
Beginning with the August 29, 2011 episode of "Raw", it was announced that "Raw" would feature talent from both "Raw" and "SmackDown", and would be known as "Raw Supershow" (the "Supershow" suffix would be dropped on July 23, 2012). Championships previously exclusive to one show or the other were available for wrestlers from any show to compete for; the "Supershow" format would mark the end of the brand extension, as all programming and live events from when the original announcement was made until July 2016 featured the full WWE roster.
WWE Raw 25 Years
The card consisted of nine matches, including four dark matches, that resulted from scripted storylines and had results predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands. Storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, "Monday Night Raw", "SmackDown Live", and "205 Live", the latter of which is cruiserweight-exclusive. "Raw" first aired on January 11, 1993, and since became the longest-running weekly episodic program in television history with no reruns. On October 30, 2017, WWE announced that "Raw" would celebrate its 25 anniversary on January 22, 2018.
Titus O'Neil
On July 19 at the 2016 WWE draft, O'Neil was drafted to "Raw". On the August 1 episode of "Raw", O'Neil started a slow heel turn when he questioned his former tag team partner Darren Young on his motives on being "great again". Later that night, he defeated Young by pinning him while grabbing Young's tights. Afterwards, O'Neil got into a backstage altercation with Young's manager Bob Backlund, ending in Young coming to Backlund's defense by attacking O'Neil. The week after on "Raw", Young defeated O'Neil by pinning him while grabbing O'Neil's tights, mimicking the way O'Neil defeated him. On the August 15 episode of "Raw", O'Neil and Young reconciled and were placed in a match against The Shining Stars. During the match, O'Neil attacked Young with a Clash of the Titus, cementing O'Neil's heel turn. Starting from September 2016, he began a losing streak whilst debuting a new gimmick known as "The Titus Brand". On the October 31 episode of "Raw", O'Neil competed in a battle royal to determinate who would join "Team Raw" at the upcoming Survivor Series pay-per-view against "Team SmackDown", but was eliminated by Sami Zayn.
In April 2017, Apollo Crews caught the attention of O'Neil's new "Titus Brand" after being drafted to "Raw" and recruited him on the brand. He later recruited cruiserweight Akira Tozawa to his brand, which he renamed to "Titus Worldwide" and turned him face in the process. After Dana Brooke challenged Asuka to a match on the November 27, 2017 episode on "Raw", in which she lost, O'Neil recruited Brooke to join the brand. Brooke made her first official appearance with the team on the January 1, 2018, episode of "Raw" accompanying Crews along with O'Neil in a match against Bray Wyatt, in which he was defeated and at this point Tozawa quietly left the team. On the January 8, 2018 episode of "Raw", O'Neil and Crews defeated Cesaro and Sheamus in an upset win. On the January 29 episode of "Raw", Crews and O'Neil competed in a match against Cesaro and Sheamus for their Tag Team Championships, in which they were unsuccessful at capturing the titles. On February 25 at Elimination Chamber, they competed in another match for the Raw Tag Team Championships, in a losing effort. On "Raw" the next night, Cesaro and Sheamus defeated Titus Worldwide in a 2 out of 3 falls match to retain the title, winning 2-0 to end the feud. O'Neil later participated in the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at the WrestleMania 34 kickoff show, but he was unsuccessful in both matches. He was also part of the 50-man Royal Rumble match at the Greatest Royal Rumble, and he was eliminated by the eventual winner Braun Strowman. When he was entering this match, he famously fell over and slid underneath the ring, which has led to several internet memes and reactions from fellow superstars. A couple of days later on Raw during a match between Baron Corbin and No Way Jose, O'Neil would try to amend for that mistake, but as he entered the ring, he slipped and fell from the apron. On the September 3 episode of "Raw", Dana Brooke parted ways with Titus Worldwide after a mid-match coaching backfired, causing Brooke and Ember Moon to lose to Bayley and Sasha Banks. On the October 15 episode of "Raw", Crews, without O'Neil, returned as a singles competitor, thus disbanding Titus Worldwide.
Evolution (professional wrestling)
Evolution was a villainous professional wrestling stable in WWE which was a part of WWE's Raw brand between 2003 and 2005, 2007, and 2014.
WWE Battleground
WWE Battleground was a professional wrestling event produced by the WWE, a Connecticut–based promotion, and broadcast live and available through pay-per-view (PPV) and the WWE Network. The event was established in 2013, debuting in October on WWE's pay-per-view calendar. In 2014, the event moved to the July slot of WWE's pay-per-view calendar. In 2016, the event is regarded as the last PPV event featuring both superstars from Raw and SmackDown, before the newly reinstated WWE brand extension went into full effect.
WWE Raw
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 2008, "Raw" went HD debuting a new stage. In 2010, WWE retired the red ropes for "Raw" after thirteen years for an all white scheme, and in 2012 became standard for all WWE programming. In 2012, "Raw" updated their HD set.
WWE Tag Team Championship
In 2001, the WWF bought rival company WCW, acquiring the WCW World Tag Team Championship, among other titles, which was defended on WWF programming until that year's Survivor Series, where the WCW World Tag Team Championship was unified into the WWF World Tag Team Championship.
After WWF's initial brand extension in the spring of 2002 and the renaming of the company as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the tag titles became the WWE Tag Team Championship and champions Billy and Chuck were drafted to the SmackDown brand. That following summer, however, The Un-Americans (Christian and Lance Storm) defeated Billy and Chuck for the titles, moving the championship to the Raw brand where it was renamed World Tag Team Championship, effectively leaving the SmackDown brand without a tag team title. As a result, then-SmackDown General Manager Stephanie McMahon introduced a new WWE Tag Team Championship and commissioned it to be the tag team title for the SmackDown brand.
Both titles were unified in 2009 and were collectively referred to as the "Unified WWE Tag Team Championship" while officially remaining independently active until the World Tag Team Championship was formally decommissioned in 2010, leaving the newer title as WWE's only tag team championship. As a result of the 2016 draft, the championship became exclusive to Raw and was renamed the Raw Tag Team Championship, and SmackDown created the SmackDown Tag Team Championship as a counterpart title. In addition, WWE's developmental brand NXT established its own Tag Team Championship in January 2013. The new NXT UK brand debuted its own Tag Team Championship in January 2019. The Raw, SmackDown, NXT, and NXT UK tag team titles are WWE's four currently active tag team championships for its male performers.
WWE Raw
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 taped on sound stages with small audiences or at large arena shows. The "Raw" formula was considerably different from the taped weekend shows that aired at the time such as "Superstars" and "Wrestling Challenge". Instead of matches taped weeks in advance with studio voice overs and taped discussion, "Raw" was a show shot and aired to a live audience, with angles playing out as they happened.
World Heavyweight Championship (WWE)
The title was established under the Raw brand in 2002, after Raw and SmackDown became distinct brands under WWE, and moved between both brands on different occasions (mainly as a result of the WWE draft) until August 29, 2011, when all programming became full roster "supershows". The World Heavyweight Championship was retired at on December 15, 2013, when it was unified with the WWE Championship. Triple H was the inaugural World Heavyweight Champion, with Randy Orton being the last.
List of WWE Raw Women's Champions
The WWE Raw Women's Championship is a women's professional wrestling world championship created and promoted by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE on the Raw brand. It was introduced as the WWE Women's Championship on April 3, 2016 at WrestleMania 32 to replace the Divas Championship and has a unique title history separate from the original WWE Women's Championship. As a result of the 2016 draft, the championship became exclusive to Raw with a subsequent rename and SmackDown created the SmackDown Women's Championship as a counterpart title.
WWE brand extension
On May 25, 2006, WWE announced a launch of a new brand, ECW, a revival of the 1990s promotion. The new brand debuted on Sci Fi Channel on June 13, 2006, with its final episode on February 16, 2010, on the rebranded Syfy. It was replaced the following week with "WWE NXT".
Survivor Series
With the return of the brand split in 2016, the 2016, 2017, and 2018 events have focused on direct competition between the two brands, Raw and SmackDown, similar to the Bragging Rights events that WWE held for two years during the first brand split. The theme of the 2017 and 2018 Survivor Series events in particular was brand supremacy; in addition to traditional Survivor Series elimination matches featuring Raw's men, women, and tag teams against SmackDown's, every champion of Raw faced their counterpart of SmackDown. Raw won both years, with 4-3 over SmackDown in 2017, and 6-0 in 2018 (although SmackDown won the pre-show match over Raw in 2018, it was not counted as it was not on the main card).
ECW (WWE brand)
ECW was a brand of the U.S. based professional wrestling promotion World Wrestling Entertainment. The brand was established on June 13, 2006 as a revival of the Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotion and was discontinued on February 16, 2010. Wrestlers assigned to the ECW brand wrestled predominately on the "ECW" television program and ECW branded or co-branded pay-per-view events. From 2007 to 2009, ECW wrestlers occasionally appeared on the "Raw" and "SmackDown" television programs due to talent exchange agreements between the brands.
WWE
Beginning in 2002 a draft lottery was held nearly every year to set the rosters, with the first draft to determine the inaugural split rosters, and subsequent drafts designed to refresh the rosters of each show. On May 26, 2006, WWE announced the relaunch of ECW as a third WWE brand. The new ECW program aired until February 16, 2010. All ECW wrestlers at that point became free agents that could sign either Raw or SmackDown.
Bam Neely
Rocheleau made his WWE television debut on the ECW brand on April 8, 2008 when after Kane and Chavo Guerrero signed the contract for their ECW Championship rematch at Backlash, LaRouche stormed the ring, aiding Guerrero (as well as Hawkins and Ryder) in beating down Kane and putting him through a table. On the May 5 edition of Raw, the entire ECW roster defeated Triple H and Mr. Kennedy in a handicap match where Guerrero pinned Kennedy.
History of WWE Raw
By the summer of 1999, every "Raw" was generally live, which remains the format today. A few exceptions still exist, most notably during the Christmas and holiday season when WWE will tape two weeks worth of shows so their superstars go home for the holiday season. "Raw" will also often air on tape delay whenever the company is touring overseas, such as its biannual airing of "Raw" from the United Kingdom (which is shown live in that country). Until the end of its first run on USA Network in 2000, "Raw" would also often be pre-empted by the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, which after WWE's return to USA in 2005 would air on CNBC on Monday nights.
WWE Raw
From 1995 to 2006, "Raw" was shown on The Sports Network until it moved to rival sports broadcaster The Score (now renamed Sportsnet 360) after it was announced that TSN would be carrying "Monday Night Football" for the 2006 season. This meant that Canadian viewers would have to watch via tape-delay, as The Score did not broadcast "Raw" live at that time. Around that time, The Score aired "Countdown to Raw" until May 2013 when "Raw" is shown live to match the United States airtime.
WWE Raw
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 1000th 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 Barclay's Center in Brooklyn and the home of the first Monday Night Raw, the Manhattan Center. On the February 20 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. Strowman won the Gauntlet match by pinning The Miz in what was the longest match in WWE history, lasting nearly two hours.
Survivor Series (2017)
In 2016, the WWE brand extension returned, splitting the roster between the Raw and SmackDown brands. Subsequently, Survivor Series 2016 featured several interpromotional matches to determine which was the better brand. This would be the genesis for the theme of Survivor Series 2017, which was brand supremacy. Every champion of the Raw brand faced their counterpart of the SmackDown brand in non-title matches: the Universal Champion against the WWE Champion, the Intercontinental Champion against the United States Champion, the Raw Women's Champion against the SmackDown Women's Champion, and the Raw Tag Team Champions against the SmackDown Tag Team Champions. As the WWE Cruiserweight Championship did not have a SmackDown counterpart, it was the only title to be defended, which was on the pre-show. Two traditional Survivor Series elimination matches, one male match and one female match, pitting five of Raw's male and female wrestlers against five of SmackDown's male and female wrestlers, respectively, also occurred.
SummerSlam (2011)
In March 2002, WWE initiated brand extension, which promoted its core business of professional wrestling through such brands, named after their two major television shows, "Raw" and "SmackDown". On the August 29 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. In 2013, Stephanie McMahon revealed in an interview with "Advertising Age", that WWE's decision to end the brand extension was due to wanting their content to flow across television and online platforms. However, the brand split was reintroduced in mid-2016, when "SmackDown" began broadcasting live on Tuesdays.
History of WWE
In April 1, 2002, with an excess of talent employed as a result of having purchased WCW and ECW, WWE needed a way to provide exposure for all of its talent. This problem was solved by introducing a "Brand Extension", with the roster split in half and the talent assigned to either "Raw" or "SmackDown!" in a mock draft lottery. Wrestlers, commentators and referees became show-exclusive, and the shows were given separate on-screen General Managers. Shortly thereafter, on the June 24, 2002 episode of "Raw", Vince McMahon officially referred to the new era as "Ruthless Aggression". Later in 2002, after WWE Champion Brock Lesnar announced himself exclusive property of the SmackDown! brand and with the creation of the World Heavyweight Championship, all the championships became show-exclusive too. Additionally, both Raw and SmackDown! began to stage individual pay-per-view events featuring only performers from that brand – only the major four pay-per-views Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series remained dual-branded. The practice of single-brand pay-per-view events was abandoned following WrestleMania 23. In effect, Raw and SmackDown were operated as two distinct promotions, with a draft lottery taking place each year to determine which talent was assigned to each brand. This lasted until August 2011, when the rosters were merged and the Brand Extension was quietly phased out.
Raw (WWE brand)
The 2005 draft was held on the June 6 episode of "Raw". The first draft lottery pick was then WWE Champion John Cena, thus moving the WWE Championship to Raw and having two titles on the brand. Eventually, then World Heavyweight Champion Batista was deafted to SmackDown as the last draft pick, leaving only the WWE Championship on "Raw". On the 2008 draft lottery, CM Punk got drafted to Raw and then won the World Heavyweight Championship from Edge, who was a SmackDown wrestler. Triple H, who was the WWE Champion at the time, got drafted to SmackDown while Kane, who was the then ECW Champion, got drafted to Raw. After the draft lottery in 2009, the WWE Championship was brought back to Raw when Triple H was drafted from SmackDown while the World Heavyweight Championship was brought back to SmackDown when Edge defeated John Cena to win the title at Backlash.
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. Subsequently, championships previously exclusive to one show or the other were available for wrestlers from any show to compete for—this would mark the end of the brand extension as all programming and live events featured the full WWE roster. In a 2013 interview with "Advertising Age", Stephanie McMahon explained that WWE's decision to end the brand extension was due to wanting their content to flow across television and online platforms.
WWE Raw
On the September 14, 2015 season premiere of "Raw", the middle rope was colored gold. Throughout the month of October 2015, the WWE announcer table, entrance ramp and ring skirts were co-branded with Susan G. Komen for the Cure of Breast cancer. Also the middle ring rope was pink to promote the fight against breast cancer. On the November 16, 2015, episode of "Raw", WWE had a moment of silence for the victims of the terrorist attack in Paris, France on November 13, 2015. Another moment of silence was held months later in June for the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting.
Royal Rumble match
With the first brand extension introduced in mid-2002, the 30 male entrants from 2003 to 2006 consisted of 15 wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brands, respectively. At first, the winner of the match received a shot for their brand's top championship, either the World Heavyweight Championship or WWE Championship. Starting in 2004, the Royal Rumble winner had the option of challenging for either brand's top championship. For instance, Chris Benoit switched from SmackDown to Raw after winning the 2004 event to challenge for Raw's top championship at the time. From 2007 to 2010, participants from the ECW brand competed along with the Raw and SmackDown brands, with the ECW Championship added as an option, although no winner ever chose it. During ECW's participation, the entries for each brand were not evenly divided. The ECW Championship was deactivated in 2010, leaving the World Heavyweight Championship and WWE Championship as the only choices until those two titles were unified in December 2013, with the latter becoming the only option until July 2016, when the brand extension returned, which introduced the Universal Championship. Like the first brand extension, the winner of the 2017 event earned a match for their brand's top championship, the Universal Championship or WWE Championship, but beginning with the 2018 event, the winner has a choice. Conversely, also beginning with the 2018 event, women receive a title opportunity of their choice of either the Raw or SmackDown Women's Championship. Due to free agents, Hall of Famers, and wrestlers from the NXT and NXT UK brands also participating, there has not been an even division of wrestlers (in either the men's or women's Rumbles) between Raw and SmackDown since the second brand extension went into effect.
WWE brand extension
The issue of specialty championships being exclusive to one brand was partially corrected in September 2002. When SmackDown general manager Stephanie McMahon announced that Undisputed Champion Brock Lesnar was not going to appear on "Raw", Raw general manager Eric Bischoff introduced the World Heavyweight Championship for Raw. Shortly thereafter, Raw became the exclusive brand for the World Tag Team Championship, the Intercontinental Championship, and the Women's Championship. Meanwhile, SmackDown created the WWE Tag Team Championship and revived the United States Championship. The end result was each brand having four championships: World Heavyweight, Intercontinental, World Tag Team, and Women's titles for Raw; WWE, United States, Tag Team, and Cruiserweight titles for SmackDown. When ECW was revived in 2006 as a third brand, the ECW World Heavyweight Championship was reactivated as the brand's only championship. Over the course of the first brand extension, these championships switched between brands, usually due to the result of the annual draft. The Cruiserweight title, however, was the only championship to never switch brands, staying on SmackDown from 2002 until the championship's retirement on September 28, 2007.
Raw (WWE brand)
On May 25, 2016, it was announced that WWE would be reintroducing the brand split in July, with distinctive rosters for both Raw and SmackDown. On the July 11 episode of "Raw", Vince McMahon named Stephanie McMahon the commissioner of "Raw". The draft took place on the live premiere of "SmackDown Live" on July 19, with the general managers of the respective brands hand-picking the wrestlers for their brands. Raw's Commissioner Stephanie McMahon and General Manager Mick Foley created a new championship—the WWE Universal Championship. This championship would be exclusive to the Raw brand, as the WWE World Championship had become exclusive to the SmackDown brand. Clash of Champions was scheduled as the first Raw-exclusive pay-per-view since January 2007 and the reintroduction of the Cruiserweight division where as Elimination Chamber has been scheduled as final Raw-exclusive pay-per-view making upcomings to be interbranded after WrestleMania.
History of WWE 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 taped on sound stages with small audiences or at large arena shows. The "Raw" formula was considerably different from the taped weekend shows that aired at the time such as "Superstars" and "Wrestling Challenge". Instead of matches taped weeks in advance with studio voice overs and taped discussion, "Raw" was a show shot and aired to a live audience, with angles playing out as they happened.
WWE Intercontinental Championship
In November 2001, the then-WCW United States Championship was unified into the Intercontinental Championship. In 2002 after the first brand split, it became exclusive to Raw and the WWF was renamed WWE. Later that year, the European and Hardcore championships were unified into the Intercontinental Championship, which itself was unified into the World Heavyweight Championship. The next year, it was reactivated for Raw, followed by the United States Championship's reactivation as a counterpart on SmackDown. The championship has switched between brands over the years as a result of the WWE draft; the 2017 Superstar Shake-up moved it back to Raw.
WWE Raw Women's Championship
Following the reintroduction of the brand extension, then champion Charlotte was drafted to the Raw brand on the July 19, 2016 premiere episode of "SmackDown Live", making the championship exclusive to Raw. In response, SmackDown created the SmackDown Women's Championship on August 23, 2016. The WWE Women's Championship was subsequently renamed to reflect its exclusivity to Raw.
History of WWE
In January 1993, WWF created their prime time cable TV program "Monday Night Raw", which aired on the USA Network.
History of WWE Raw
On May 25, WWE reintroduced the brand split, with distinctive rosters for both "Raw" and "SmackDown". On the July 11, 2016 episode of "Raw", Vince McMahon named Stephanie McMahon the Commissioner of "Raw". The following week, Mick Foley was introduced as Raw's new General Manager. Color commentator Corey Graves replaced JBL immediately following the 2016 WWE draft. As part of the "New Era", Raw received a new logo 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 October 3, Raw made history once again by having their women face off in the main event for the first time since December 6, 2004, as Sasha Banks defeated Charlotte by submission to regain the WWE Raw Women's Championship, and on October 30 had the first Women's Main Event Hell in a Cell match. In October 2016, Bill Goldberg returned to "Raw" after 12 years, and "Raw" got a big boost in ratings. On October 17, Goldberg returned to "Raw" to answer Brock Lesnar's challenge which he accepted at Survivor Series. Raw made history once again by having their women face off in the main event for the first time ever in a Falls count anywhere match as Sasha Banks defeated Charlotte by submission to regain the WWE Raw Women's Championship.
Raw (WWE brand)
At the time, this excluded the WWE Undisputed Championship and the WWE Women's Championship as those WWE titles would be defended on both shows. In September 2002, then 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", 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 a SmackDown exclusive, it was no longer referred to as "undisputed". Following this, the Women's Championship soon became a 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 Network
The origins of the WWE Network can trace back to 2000 when USA Network filed the lawsuit against the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now known as the WWE) due to breach of contract which saw most of its programming moved to Viacom-owned TNN and MTV. The Delaware Chancery Court ruled in favor of the WWF in June 2000. Then CEO, Linda McMahon, revealed that WWF wanted its own cable network and testified that before WWF signed a rights deal with Viacom, the company had floated the idea of acquiring USA's Sci-Fi Channel, and reformatting it as a dedicated wrestling network. USA executives rejected the idea, and McMahon said that former USA Networks President Barry Baker encouraged her to talk to other programmers about potential deals. "I can tell you right now, Linda, you're not going to get anybody to give you a network," McMahon testified. In 2005, USA Network re-acquired the rights to all WWE programming.
Royal Rumble (2007)
Royal Rumble (2007) was the twentieth annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It took place on January 28, 2007, at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas and featured talent from the Raw, SmackDown! and ECW brands. This marked the first time that the new ECW brand participated in the Royal Rumble match. As has been customary since 1993, the Royal Rumble match winner received a match at that year's WrestleMania, (in this instance: WrestleMania 23) for his choice at either the WWE Championship, the World Heavyweight Championship or the ECW World Championship.
ECW (WWE brand)
The enormous popularity of ECW merchandise prompted WWE to organize One Night Stand, an ECW reunion pay-per-view in 2005. The financial and critical success of the event motivated WWE to organize a second One Night Stand the following year. With rejuvenated interest in the ECW product, WWE began exploring the possibility of reviving the promotion full-time. On May 25, 2006, WWE announced the launch of ECW as a stand-alone brand, congruous to Raw and SmackDown, with its own show on Sci Fi (now Syfy). On May 29, the WWE held their 2006 brand extension draft. The draft featured ECW founder Paul Heyman receiving two total draft picks from the existing Raw and SmackDown rosters for the newly created ECW brand. During the draft, Rob Van Dam was drafted from Raw and Kurt Angle from SmackDown.
WWE Heat
In April 2002, the show returned to its original filming schedule, again before "Raw". Eventually, the live from WWF New York format was retired, and was replaced as being the Raw brand's second show. Ratings were still moderate for Heat, although the show lost some popularity once "SmackDown!" began to air. This version also featured highlights from that week's Raw, and the name change was introduced to the show in May 2002, when it became known as WWE Sunday Night Heat. Heat returned to the United Kingdom and Ireland in January 2003 on Sky One (with repeats on Sky Sports), though the coverage became Sky Sports exclusive in January 2005 along with most of WWE's programming. In the US, Heat stayed with MTV until March 2003 when it was transferred over to TNN/Spike TV. It stayed in that timeslot until the contract with Viacom was up.
History of WWE Raw
The history of WWE Raw began as WWF's "Monday Night Raw" on January 11, 1993. Over the next two decades, "Raw" would become the promotion's flagship show, achieving numerous milestones along the way.
ECW (WWE brand)
In early-to-mid-2002, then World Wrestling Federation (WWF) underwent a process they called the "brand extension". The WWF 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 came about as a result of the WWF purchasing their two biggest competitors, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW); and the subsequent doubling of its roster and championships. The brand extension was publicly announced by Linda McMahon during a telecast of "Raw" on March 25 and became official the next day. WWE acquired the rights to ECW's trademarks and video library in 2003.
WWE Judgment Day
In 2002 a court order led to WWF changing its name to WWE. Later that year, WWE held a draft that split its roster into two distinctive brands of wrestling, Raw and SmackDown., and ECW in 2006. Before the draft, matches featured wrestlers from the roster without any limitations; after the draft, matches only consisted of wrestlers from their distinctive brands. The first Judgment Day event to be produced under the WWE banner and with roster limitations was Judgment Day (2003), which took place on May 18, 2003. The following year, WWE announced that PPV events, excluding WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and the Royal Rumble, would be made exclusive to each brand; Judgment Day was made exclusive to the Smackdown! brand. After three years of being produced as a brand exclusive event, Judgment Day (2006) was the final Judgment Day event that was brand exclusive, as WWE announced that PPV events from then on would feature all three brands of WWE.
2007 WWE draft
The 2007 World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) draft, the fifth WWE draft, took place at the Wachovia Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on June 11. The first half of the draft was televised live for three hours on World Wrestling Entertainment's program, "Raw" on USA Network. The second half of the draft, or the "supplemental draft", was conducted over WWE's website, WWE.com, for four hours on June 17, 2007 as draft picks were announced at twenty-minute intervals. There were twenty-three draft picks, with twenty-seven wrestlers drafted overall, between the promotion's three brands: Raw, SmackDown!, and ECW. For the televised half of the draft, each brand's draft pick was determined by nine matches, one being a battle royal for two draft picks, where wrestlers from their respective brands wrestled to earn a draft pick. The supplemental draft, however, was conducted randomly, with each brand receiving random draft selections. Raw and SmackDown! received five random draft picks, while ECW received three random draft picks. The televised draft picks were randomly selected by a computer that was shown on the Raw titantron. Every WWE wrestler from Raw, SmackDown!, and ECW was eligible to be drafted.
Bubba Ray Dudley
Following WrestleMania X8, in May 2002 the WWF was renamed "World Wrestling Entertainment" (WWE) and the roster was divided into two brands, "Raw" and "SmackDown!". The Dudley Boyz were separated when Bubba Ray was drafted to Raw and D-Von to "SmackDown!". On "Raw", Bubba Ray found moderate success as he competed for the WWE Hardcore Championship, formed a tag team with Spike, and even competed in a World Heavyweight Championship match against Triple H. D'Von's new gimmick on "SmackDown!" failed to get over, however, and he was reunited with Bubba Ray and Spike on November 17, 2002 when he returned to the "Raw" brand.
Elimination Chamber (2018)
Elimination Chamber (2018) (also known as No Escape (2018) in Germany) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event and WWE Network event produced by WWE for the Raw brand. It took place on February 25, 2018, at T-Mobile Arena in the Las Vegas Valley, in Paradise, Nevada. It was the eighth event under the Elimination Chamber chronology and the final Raw-exclusive pay-per-view under the second brand split as following WrestleMania 34, all WWE pay-per-views became dual-branded, featuring wrestlers from both the Raw and SmackDown brands. The 2018 event was also the first to feature a seven-man Elimination Chamber match, the first event to include a women's Elimination Chamber match, and the first Raw-exclusive pay-per-view since the 2016 reintroduction of the brand extension to not feature any cruiserweight division matches.
List of WWE Intercontinental Champions
The WWE Intercontinental Championship is a professional wrestling championship contested in and owned by the American promotion WWE on the Raw brand. The title was introduced into the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in 1979. Pat Patterson, holder of the WWF North American Heavyweight Championship, was awarded the title (with the kayfabe explanation that he won a tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and unified the North American and South American titles).
Survivor Series (2017)
Survivor Series (2017) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event and WWE Network event, produced by WWE for the Raw and SmackDown brands. It took place on November 19, 2017, at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. It was the thirty-first event under the Survivor Series chronology. The theme of the event was brand supremacy, and every match of the main card involved wrestlers of the Raw brand facing wrestlers of the SmackDown brand.
WWE Raw
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. "Raw Is War" premiered on TNN on September 25, 2000.
WWE Championship
After the 2016 brand extension where the championship became exclusive to SmackDown, the similarly designed WWE Universal Championship was introduced for the Raw brand. The WWE World Heavyweight Championship was briefly renamed WWE Championship; the digitized belt in the pre-match graphic read "WWE Champion" below the WWE logo. It was then renamed WWE World Championship in July 2016 and the pre-match graphic was updated to read "WWE World Champion". In December 2016, the title was again reverted to WWE Championship; the pre-match graphic no longer includes the title's name. The physical belt, however, retains "World Heavyweight Champion" below the logo.
WWE Raw
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". Also, the new WWE logo is seen on the ring's turnbuckle covers. The USA Network logo has also been moved to the lower-left hand corner of the screen. Also, "Raw"s theme song ("The Night") was modified. On re-runs on the WWE Network and on delayed broadcasts for most international markets, "Raw" is edited without the word "LIVE" and the hashtag.
2008 WWE draft
The 2008 World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) draft, the sixth WWE draft, took place at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas on June 23. The draft took place live for three hours on "Raw." Every WWE wrestler, announcer, commentator, and general manager were eligible to be drafted. Similar to the 2007 WWE draft, wrestlers from each brand competed in matches to win a random draft pick for their brand. Draft picks were kayfabe selected at random via a computer that was shown on the "Raw" titantron. Like the previous year, a supplemental draft took place on June 25, where draft selections were randomly conducted. The Draft featured the Raw brand randomly drafting ECW Champion Kane from the ECW brand. It also featured the ECW brand drafting WWE United States Champion Matt Hardy from the SmackDown brand. The final selection in the draft was conducted by the SmackDown brand, and they drafted WWE Champion Triple H from the Raw brand. As per pre-Draft stipulations, all the three champions brought their respective titles to the brand to which they were drafted.
Undisputed championship
Additionally, following ECW's original closure in 2001, WWE had purchased its assets and remaining properties. In 2006, WWE re-established the Extreme Championship Wrestling franchise as a third brand to complement the existing "Raw" and "SmackDown" brands while the ECW World Heavyweight Championship was recommissioned for the new ECW brand. The brand and the title remained active within WWE until 2010.
The New Breed (ECW)
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) acquired Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and its video library in 2003, and later began reintroducing ECW by utilizing ECW library content for DVDs and releasing a series of books. The popularity of ECW merchandise prompted WWE to organize an ECW reunion pay-per-view, ECW One Night Stand, in 2005. WWE organized a second One Night Stand pay-per-view the following year. In May 2006 WWE announced the launch of ECW as a stand-alone brand, congruous to Raw and SmackDown!, with its own show on the Sci Fi channel. In preparation for the launch of the ECW brand, WWE hired several original ECW wrestlers, including Sabu, The Sandman, and Balls Mahoney. It was also announced that wrestlers who had previously worked for ECW before joining WWE following its closure, including Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer, would be moving to the new ECW brand.
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.
SmackDown (WWE brand)
In September 2002, the Undisputed Championship became the WWE Championship again and was moved to SmackDown, prompting Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff to create the World Heavyweight Championship for Raw. SmackDown created the WWE Tag Team Championship and they revived the United States Championship. Over the course of the first brand extension, these championships switched between brands, usually due to the result of the annual draft. However, the Cruiserweight title was the only championship to never switch brands, staying on SmackDown from 2002 until the championship's retirement on September 28, 2007.
Elimination Chamber
In 2002, to exploit additional on-screen talent after buying World Championship Wrestling (WCW), WWE began a brand extension that divided the roster between the two brands of WWE, Raw and SmackDown!. Former WCW President and then Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff formally announced the creation of the chamber during the October 21 edition of "Raw" and scheduled the match to feature participants from the Raw brand roster at the 2002 Survivor Series. The match was exclusive to the Raw brand for the first four matches and at joint-branded pay-per-view events, but upon the creation of the ECW brand in , the match was instead promoted for the newly created brand at the 2006 December to Dismember. Beginning in 2008, the match became exclusive to the No Way Out pay-per-view, and two Elimination Chamber matches were featured annually for two years among the three brands. In 2010, WWE replaced their No Way Out event with the self-titled WWE Elimination Chamber, a new pay-per-view event which continued the tradition of its predecessor. From 2008-2014, the match had been featured in February pay-per-view events only. An Elimination Chamber pay-per-view event took place on May 31, 2015, exclusively on the WWE Network. After the second brand extension in 2016, it was announced that the brands would return to having separate pay-per-views. In late 2016, it was announced that Elimination Chamber would return as a SmackDown-exclusive pay-per-view in February 2017, and it switched to being Raw-exclusive in February 2018.
WWE Raw Women's Championship
The WWE Raw Women's Championship is a women's professional wrestling world championship created and promoted by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE on the Raw brand. It is one of two women's championships for WWE's main roster, along with the SmackDown Women's Championship on the SmackDown brand. The current champion is Ronda Rousey, who is in her first reign.
WWE brand extension
In March 2002, WWE began promoting its core business of professional wrestling through two distinct brands, named after their two major television shows "Raw" and "SmackDown!". From 2006 to 2010, a third brand existed for their television show "ECW", which was a revived version of the former promotion. The first brand extension ended on August 29, 2011, after which the Raw and SmackDown brands were dissolved.
WWE Raw
"Raw" moved from the USA Network to TNN in September 2000, which was rebranded to Spike TV in August 2003. On October 3, 2005, "Raw" returned to the USA Network, where it remains today. As of December 9, 2016, all episodes of the show, older than 30 days, are now available on demand on the WWE Network.
WWE draft
A draft did not occur in 2003, with the second official draft occurring in 2004. The draft took place live for two hours on WWE's flagship television program, "Raw" on Spike TV. Post-draft trades were announced on WWE's website, until midnight on March 22, 2004. There were twelve draft picks, with nineteen wrestlers overall switching between the promotion's two brands: Raw and SmackDown. During the draft lottery, the General manager of Raw, Eric Bischoff, and the General manager of SmackDown!, Paul Heyman, stood on opposite ends of the stage on the Raw set, where they drafted six wrestlers randomly via two machines. At the conclusion of the draft, the two GMs would then be allowed to trade anyone on the roster until Midnight EST, which was later extended until Tuesday night after Heyman resigned. Every WWE employee was eligible to be drafted, including injured wrestlers, commentators, champions, and general managers.
Ken Anderson (wrestler)
On April 15, 2009, Mr. Kennedy returned to the Raw brand as Raw's first pick of the 2009 Supplemental Draft. On May 7, Kennedy returned to in-ring action at Florida Championship Wrestling, WWE's developmental territory, to gain match fitness before returning to Raw. On the May 11, 2009 episode of "Raw", WWE aired a video package to promote Kennedy's return. He made his official Raw return on May 25, competing in a 10-man tag team match, which his team won.
History of WWE
Eventually Vince McMahon brought back Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall to reunite the nWo at the No Way Out pay-per-view in February 2002. However, the storyline proved unpopular with fans and Hogan soon turned face at WrestleMania X8 after his classic match with The Rock. On the March 25, 2002 edition of Raw, the World Wrestling Federation had the first time ever WWF draft lottery, which meant the WWF superstars are separated between two brands, Raw and SmackDown!. This became effective from April 1, 2002 on Raw, thus leading to a brand new era, and ending the Attitude Era.
History of WWE Raw
On March 10, 2005, Viacom and WWE decided not to go on with the agreement with Spike TV, effectively ending "Raw" and other WWE programs's tenure on the network when their deal expired in September 2005. On April 4, 2005, WWE announced a three-year deal with NBCUniversal 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 return to the USA Network, 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".
William Regal
Regal was drafted to the Raw brand in the inaugural WWF draft lottery on March 25. Regal lost the European Championship to Spike Dudley on the April 8 episode of "Raw". He regained the championship from Dudley on the May 6 episode of "Raw" to become a four-time champion. Throughout April, Regal would also hold the WWF Hardcore Championship five times, with all of these reigns coming at non-televised house shows. Regal entered the 2002 King of the Ring tournament, but lost to Booker T in the qualifiers.
WWE
WWE's origins can be traced back as far as 1952 when Roderick James "Jess" McMahon and Toots Mondt created the Capitol Wrestling Corporation Ltd. (CWC), which joined the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in 1953. McMahon, who was a successful boxing promoter, began working with Tex Rickard in 1926. With the help of Rickard, he began promoting boxing and wrestling at the third Madison Square Garden. It was not the first time McMahon had promoted wrestling cards, as he had already done so during the 1910s.
WWE Magazine
Shortly before that, the WWF/E had split up into two brands, Raw and SmackDown!. "WWE Magazine" and "Raw Magazine" were unaffected, however, until the January 2004 issues, in which WWE decided to have separate magazines for their respective brands. "Raw Magazine" retained its name but followed the style of "WWE Magazine" however; it focused solely on the Raw brand. "WWE Magazine" became "SmackDown! Magazine", and would focus solely on the SmackDown! brand. That lasted until the summer of 2006, in which "Raw Magazine" and "SmackDown Magazine" would be discontinued and a new "WWE Magazine" would debut with the August 2006 issue (Dave Batista cover).
2002 WWF draft lottery
The brand extension was officially enforced on April 1, 2002. Stone Cold Steve Austin was made exempt from the draft by Linda McMahon, but later opted to sign with Raw. A month later, the WWF was sued by the World Wildlife Fund over the WWF initialism. This resulted in the company being renamed from "World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc." to simply "World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.", which caused all of the WWF's assets to be properly renamed and branded. The Flair and McMahon feud came to an end on the edition of June 10, 2002 of "Raw", when McMahon became the sole owner of WWE by defeating Flair in a No Holds Barred match. Following the situations with the brand extension and name change, by having two brands in place, the WWE was able to increase the number of live events held each year from 200 to 350, including tours in several new international markets. Even after the end of the first brand extension in 2011, WWE continued to have two touring live event shows. The brand extension returned in 2016.
History of WWE Raw
From July 2010 to July 2012 there was the Anonymous Raw General Manager after firing the previous general manager, Bret Hart, who ran "Raw" intermittently. In August 2011, the brand extension was suspended with superstars from "SmackDown" appearing on "Raw" as well (and vice versa), and the show was named "Raw Supershow". It was revealed the Anonymous Raw General Manager was Hornswoggle on July 9, 2012.
Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling
In April 2015, WWE announced that the program would be added to the WWE Network, making its premiere following the April 20 episode of "WWE Raw". On July 24, 2015, Hulk Hogan was fired by the WWE and references to Hulk Hogan including "Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling" were removed from the WWE network.
History of WWE Raw
In spring of 2002, the WWF underwent a process they called the "brand extension". The WWF 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 came about as a result of the WWF purchasing their two biggest competitors, WCW and ECW, and the WWF having an abundance of talent on the roster. The brand extension was publicly announced by Linda McMahon during a telecast of "Raw" on March 18, 2002 and became official the next week. Shortly thereafter, the WWF was legally required to change the name of the company to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Wrestlers became show-exclusive, wrestling for their specific show only.
2009 WWE draft
The 2009 World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) draft was the seventh WWE draft, produced by the American professional wrestling promotion World Wrestling Entertainment. The draft had two parts: the first part was televised live for three hours on April 13; the second part, the "supplemental draft", was held the same day immediately following the televised portion. The first part was broadcast on WWE's program "Raw" on the USA Network in the United States, and the supplemental draft was available on the Internet, at WWE's official website. The televised portion was held in Atlanta, Georgia at Philips Arena. The 2009 WWE draft marked the third time that the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands were featured in the draft; wrestlers, general managers and commentators were all eligible to be drafted from the company's roster. For the televised half, matches determined which brand received a random draft selection. During the supplemental draft, brand and employee selections were made at random. Due to draft regulations, drafted champions took their titles to their new brands, and tag teams were not exempt from being selected. As a result, the draft impacted championships and split tag teams.
ECW World Heavyweight Championship
The title was deactivated in 2001 when ECW went out of business. ECW was then purchased by WWE two years later during the summer of 2003. In 2006, WWE reactivated the championship as the world title of their newly established ECW brand. It was a third concurrently active world championship in the promotion, complementing the WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship of the other two brands, Raw and SmackDown. The ECW Championship briefly appeared as the sole world title of the Raw brand in 2008 as a result of that year's draft. When WWE disbanded the ECW brand in 2010, the championship was subsequently retired with Ezekiel Jackson as the final titleholder.
WWE Heat
The show was originally introduced on the USA Network on August 2, 1998 in the United States. The one-hour show would be broadcast on Sunday nights, being taped earlier in the week after Raw. It was the second primary program of the WWF's weekly television show line-up, serving as a supplement to the "Monday Night Raw" program. "Heat" would feature a format similar to that of "Monday Night Raw" in that continuing feuds from the previous week would progress during the show, and the following day's "Monday Night Raw" would be heavily promoted. On scheduled WWF pay-per-view event nights, "Heat" would also serve as a preview show to the events. The show was initially signed for only 6 episodes but was very popular and was continued.
Big Gold Belt
By 2002, the WWF had been divided in what became known as the brand extension and the promotion along with its parent company were renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). The roster was divided into two franchises or "WWE brands", split between Raw and SmackDown!. The WWE Undisputed Champion appeared on both shows and defended against challengers from both brands. After SummerSlam in August 2002, WWE Undisputed Champion Brock Lesnar announced that he had signed an exclusive contract with SmackDown, ignoring the claim to the title's number-one contendership by Raw's Triple H. Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff said that the WWE Undisputed Championship was thus very much disputed, and he awarded the World Heavyweight Championship, in the form of the Big Gold Belt, to Triple H. A new version of the belt, incorporating a WWE logo for copyright purposes, was introduced in March 2003.
List of WWE Raw Tag Team Champions
The WWE Raw Tag Team Championship is a professional wrestling world tag team championship contested in WWE on the Raw brand. 
Introduced as the WWE Tag Team Championship, it was WWE's third world tag team title, and sixth tag team title overall. After WWE bought the promotions of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and unified the WCW Tag Team Championship into its own title at Survivor Series 2001, it split its roster into two brands, Raw and SmackDown. As WWE's original World Tag Team Championship was designated exclusive to the Raw brand, SmackDown introduced the WWE Tag Team Championship as its own championship.
WWE Championship
In May 2002, the WWF was renamed World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the championships were renamed accordingly. At first, the championship remained unaffiliated with either brand as wrestlers from both brands could challenge the champion. Following the appointment of Eric Bischoff and Stephanie McMahon as General Managers of Raw and SmackDown, respectively, Stephanie McMahon convinced then-Undisputed Champion Brock Lesnar to become exclusive to the SmackDown brand, leaving the Raw brand without a world title. In response, on September 2, Bischoff disputed Lesnar's status as champion, stating Lesnar was refusing to defend his title against the designated No. 1 contender, Triple H, and awarded the latter with the newly created World Heavyweight Championship. Immediately afterwards, Lesnar's championship dropped the epithet "Undisputed" and became known as the WWE Championship.
USA Network
USA Network has a longstanding history with sports, dating back to its existence as the Madison Square Garden Network. The network carried Major League Baseball games on Thursday nights from 1979 to 1983, and the "NHL on USA" ran from 1979 to 1985. "College Football on USA" ran from 1980 to 1986, and its telecast of the 1981 Liberty Bowl was the first college bowl game to be exclusively broadcast on cable television. The "NBA on USA" also aired from 1979 to 1984, the first time that the NBA had a cable television partner. Professional wrestling company WWE has had a longstanding relationship with the network; WWF Prime Time Wrestling broadcast on USA from 1985-1993 until it was superseded by "WWE Raw" from 1993-2000, and again since 2005. "WWE SmackDown" also started airing on the network in January 2016.
WWE Raw Tag Team Championship
Following the events of the WWE brand extension, an annual WWE draft was established, in which select members of the WWE roster are reassigned to a different brand. After the WWE Tag Team Championship was unified with the World Tag Team Championship as the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship, the champions could appear and defend the titles on any WWE brand. The titles were combined as the WWE Tag Team Championship in August 2010 with a single set of belts, and continued to be defended on any brand. The brand extension was discontinued on August 29, 2011, but it was revived on July 19, 2016. The following is a list of dates indicating the transitions of the WWE (Raw) Tag Team Championship between the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands.
Clash of Champions (2016)
Clash of Champions (2016) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event and WWE Network event produced by WWE. It took place on September 25, 2016 at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was the first WWE event under the Clash of Champions chronology, replacing Night of Champions. It was the first Raw branded event following the second WWE brand extension in July 2016.
205 Live (WWE brand)
The Raw brand was originally established as the exclusive home of the division during the 2016 brand extension, with all cruiserweights being assigned to Raw following the 2016 WWE draft. However, following WrestleMania 34, cruiserweight wrestlers ceased to appear on "Monday Night Raw".
WWE brand extension
The extension started on March 25, 2002 with a draft on "Raw" and went into effect one week later on April 1. The following month, the WWF was renamed to WWE. On June 13, 2006, after a reunion PPV and video releases, WWE announced an addition to its prime time programming with "ECW on Sci-Fi". The new ECW served as a third brand, and a revival of the original ECW promotion. Both instances of the brand extensions required that representatives of each brand draft "superstars" (terminology used by the company to refer to its contracted personnel) onto each brand in a draft lottery.
WWE New Year's Revolution
New Year's Revolution was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event, that was produced every January by the American professional wrestling promotion, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). The event was created in 2005, with its inaugural event produced in January of that year. To coincide with the brand extension, the event was made exclusive to the Raw brand throughout the event's history.
The New Day (professional wrestling)
The stable originally debuted on the July 21, 2014 episode of "Raw", but made their official television debut as The New Day in November 2014. In April 2015 at Extreme Rules, they won their first WWE Tag Team Championship. They lost the championship to The Prime Time Players the following month at Money in the Bank, but won it back in August at SummerSlam; their second reign became the longest in the title's history, the first to last more than a year, and the last with the title being the sole tag team championship in WWE. On December 14, 2016, they became the longest reigning tag team champions in WWE history (beating Demolition's 28-year-old record of 478 days with WWE's original World Tag Team Championship) and, at that time, the longest reigning champions for any WWE championship over the last two decades; they lost the renamed Raw Tag Team Championship four days later to Cesaro and Sheamus. After being drafted to SmackDown in April 2017, they went on to capture the SmackDown Tag Team Championship on three separate occasions.
ECW World Heavyweight Championship
Following the events of the WWE brand extension, an annual WWE draft was established, in which select members of the WWE roster are reassigned to a different brand. ECW was revived as a third brand in 2006 to rival Raw and SmackDown and continued to operate until February 16, 2010, rendering the title inactive once again.
Keystone Centre
WWE held their flagship Monday Night Raw event on October 23, 1995.
WWE Main Event
The show is produced on Monday evenings, right before the "Raw" airing, and is broadcast on Thursday Nights at 9 pm similar to the system SmackDown used before it went live on July 19, 2016. It originally aired live, with a slight broadcast delay. It uses the same HD set as Raw with all ring ropes being red to represent the Raw brand, except for the month of October, when the middle rope is pink, to promote WWE and Susan G. Komen for the Cure's breast cancer awareness campaign.
Extreme Championship Wrestling
After purchasing the assets of ECW, WWE relaunched the Extreme Championship Wrestling franchise as a third brand with their existing Raw and SmackDown brands. It debuted on June 13, 2006 on Sci Fi in the United States and ran for close to four years until it aired its final episode on February 16, 2010 on the rebranded Syfy.
History of WWE
Meanwhile, competition between the major wrestling companies increased. In 1994, WCW signed Hulk Hogan and other former WWF stars to multi-year contracts, and in 1995 launched "Monday Nitro" on TNT, to go head to head with "Raw", starting the Monday Night Wars.
WWE Intercontinental Championship
Following the brand split on March 25, 2002, all titles in WWE became exclusive to either the Raw brand or SmackDown brand. The brand split was discontinued on August 29, 2011 but revived on July 19, 2016. The following is a list of dates indicating the transitions of the Intercontinental Championship between the Raw and SmackDown brands.
WCW (WWE subsidiary)
In an attempt to experiment the revival of WCW, the WWF only ran a handful of matches on "Raw" and "SmackDown!" in Tacoma in early July 2001. These WCW-branded matches were ill-received by the longtime WWF fans so much that on the very first WCW-brand main event between Booker T and Buff Bagwell the crowd cheered when the WWF heels Stone Cold Steve Austin and Kurt Angle ran in to jump the WCW babyface Booker T. Eventually, the WWF carried the brand extension, which effectively reviving WCW under its own auspices and running two separate promotions, each with one of the WWF's two existing televised shows, "Raw" and "SmackDown!"
WWE Divas Championship
With the first WWE brand extension in 2002, a storyline division in which WWE assigned its employees to different television programs and touring companies, the WWE Women's Championship was originally to be defended on both brands. At some point that year, however, it became exclusive to the Raw brand. Thereafter, only Divas on the Raw brand were able to compete for the title, while the Divas on the SmackDown brand were unable to compete for a women's-exclusive championship. However, on a few occasions, the regulation was bypassed with Melina, Ashley Massaro, Torrie Wilson, and Nidia challenging for the title while on the SmackDown brand, but none were successful.
2011 WWE draft
On the August 29 episode of "Raw", it was announced that performers from Raw and SmackDown were no longer exclusive to their respective brand. Subsequentely, championships previously exclusive to one show or the other were available for wrestlers from any show to compete for; this would mark the end of the brand extension, as all programming and live events featured the full WWE roster. In a 2013 interview with "Advertising Age", Stephanie McMahon explained that WWE's decision to end the brand extension was due to wanting their content to flow across television and online platforms. However, the brand split was reintroduced in mid-2016, when "SmackDown" began broadcasting live on Tuesdays.
WWE 2K
Every game in the "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw" series includes a roster of "superstars" and "Divas" based on superstars who compete for WWE. Every year, WWE acquires new superstars and releases old superstars. As a result, every time a "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw" game is released, the new superstars are added into the game and the old released superstars are removed from the game to reflect the changes in the actual WWE. From the release of "WWF SmackDown!" to the release of "WWF SmackDown! Just Bring It", superstars were not divided into brands. In 2002, the WWE split its entire roster into two brands of wrestling, called Raw and SmackDown!, which were named after WWE's television shows. The WWE Brand Extension was first featured in "WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth". In 2006, WWE launched a new brand, called ECW, which was named after the original Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion. The new ECW brand was first featured in "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008". WWE holds an annual draft lottery, in which WWE superstars switch brands. The games in production when the draft occurs include the changes that take place in the draft. For example, when "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008" was in production during June 2007, the 2007 WWE Draft took place, and the draft changes were included in the video game. Another brand of wrestling included in the series is the legends program, which was first included with the release of "WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain". Popular WWE alumni or members of the WWE Hall of Fame have been included since then under the legends program. This was featured up until the release of "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008", as alumni and Hall of Fame members were not featured in "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009" due to production of "WWE Legends of WrestleMania". "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009" was also the first game to feature characters as downloadable content.
History of WWE Raw
On January 22, 2018, WWE celebrated the Raw 25 Years, with a simulcast show at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn and the home of the first Monday Night Raw, the Manhattan Center. The following week, "Raw" updated its graphics and theme songs. On the February 20 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. Strowman won the Gauntlet match by pinning The Miz in what was the longest match in WWE history, lasting nearly two hours.
List of WWE Raw Tag Team Champions
In 2007, after the initiation of the ECW brand, the title was shared between the SmackDown and ECW brands, thus inter-brand matches could take place for the title. In 2009, the title was unified with the World Tag Team Championship by The Colóns (Carlito and Primo) at WrestleMania XXV and became recognized as the "Unified WWE Tag Team Championship" until August 2010 when the World Tag Team Championship was decommissioned in favor of continuing the lineage of the WWE Tag Team Championship. In 2016, WWE reintroduced its brand split and the championship became exclusive to Raw. It was subsequently renamed to Raw Tag Team Championship after SmackDown introduced its SmackDown Tag Team Championship.
WWE Raw
In August 2009, the court ruled in favor of Muscle Flex, Inc. that it was successful in defending its "In the Raw" trademark against the WWE. In a press release date issued on July 20, 2009, Muscle Flex Inc. 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. In previous quarters, these numbers were even higher.