Shining a Spotlight 1.10.08: The Impact of RAW

Posted by Michael Weyer on 01.10.2008

A look at how RAW changed the way wrestling TV was. Plus, my thoughts on the whole ROH fandom incident.

know some may be surprised I missed on that big WWE and TNA in 2008 roundtables as I've talked of the company a lot. Guess I need to check the forums more for such alerts. Well, I did take a look at them in last week's column so I guess it works out.

Moving to what's become a hot discussion here, the reaction of ROH fans against Nigel McGuiness. I was tempted to talk a bit about it but I think Ari has covered it well along with a few others here. As a longtime defender of John Cena, I know all about hearing folks boo a guy who really doesn't deserve it but this really was ridiculous. The one I don't get? The "You Sold Out" chants which make absolutely no sense whatsoever as he wasn't leaving for another company, just taking time off from injuries. At least the majority of fans were chanting for him which just makes that small pack look like bigger idiots and good of Nigel to fire right back at them, showing how he felt. It was a big disappointment to me as ROH has struck me as a respectful fanbase so for them to sink to the level of the most annoying of ECW smarks just reminds me that they're as human as the rest of us. I can understand disappointment they didn't get to see the title match they paid for but to turn it all against Nigel for what's beyond his control is uncalled for. I think too many fans still buy into the old ECW line about "the fans are part of the show" and take that to an extreme. Yes, we are the key to wrestling's success but we're not the ones who are supposed to be on camera or getting the massive attention, the wrestlers are. If you can't understand that and respect it, well, I think Nigel spoke well for all of us on that regard.


I guess I may be a bit late to the party when it comes to noting RAW's 15th anniversary. WWE themselves already celebrated with a special three-hour broadcast and a very good three-disc DVD with plenty of great moments (true, a lot missing but considering the massive amount of material over the years, that can be understandable). Several columns on 411 also marked the anniversary with favorite moments and such. I decided to wait until the actual anniversary of that first show rolled along to do something on it. But rather than rehash stuff on favorite moments or such, I wanted to do something different, which was to really examine how RAW changed wrestling and more importantly, coverage of it, big-time.

To truly understand the impact, you have to look back at what wrestling on TV used to be like. It does make me feel old at times to remember when you had a half dozen different promotions with TV shows on the air back in the 1980's. When television first rolled along, it was a boon to the industry, letting fans see the big stars and matches from big arenas. The presentation was pretty simple: A single camera usually set about a dozen or so rows into the audience to catch the entire ringside area. Sometimes, the camera would be set closer to the ring in a corner but it was still only the single camera to catch everything. As the 1970's went on, several promoters moved from arenas to small studios with Jim Crockett's Mid-Atlantic region placing a small area for interviews. That was pretty much how the presentation of wrestling went.

All that changed in 1982 and for once, a major advance in the business was not created by Vince McMahon. Rather, it was the work of a man named Mickey Grant who had been hired to produce what would become World Class Championship Wrestling. Grant had ideas on how to revolutionize wrestling coverage and Fritz Von Erich decided to let him try them out. Grant had already considered doing what had been used in boxing coverage of the time, which was to get men around and even on the ring with shoulder cameras to catch the action much more closely. Grant didn't stop there, however, also adding stuff like microphones to catch the sounds of the action, instant and slo-mo replays and also brought top-notch editing and a control booth to make sure the show was presented as stylish as possible.

Grant also changed the show in other ways by introducing taped segments of stuff like personal profiles of stars. You'd have Iceman King Parsons working at an ice plant, Chris Adams doing tea, the Fabulous Freebirds doing a promo at a house on "Badstreet" and, most famously, Jimmy Garvin forced to be David Von Erich's valet for a day. Even better was the idea to take stuff outside the arenas with various wrestlers doing promos at bars, farms, roadsides and more, making the show feel much more vibrant and alive and pulling viewers in. Thanks in no small part to Grant, WCCW was soon the hottest show around and a major hit.

It wasn't long before the success spread to other companies and naturally, McMahon was one of the first to leap at the new way wrestling could be shown, adding in the multiple cameras to his weekly broadcasts. Crockett was soon behind but still retained the small studio. So you had all three competing until 1984, when Ted Turner's growing TBS station decided to add McMahon's WWF to its weekly Saturday afternoon show. In what has since been termed "Black Saturday" (and believe me, I'm as surprised as anyone that WWE 24/7 actually used that name for it), fans tuned in to see the Mid-Atlantic faves replaced by McMahon's flashy, cartoonish WWF product. Needless to say, it didn't go over well, ratings plummeted and eventually, Vince sold his control back to Crockett and Bill Watts. Watts was soon producing a show that could rival WCCW in terms of innovations and also added in music videos to take advantage of the new young demographic.

So basically, it broke down like this for a wrestling viewer in about 1985-86: McMahon had his shows from Madison Square Garden broadcast in the Northeast as well as "Superstars" and "Wrestling Challenge" on weekends. Those were shot before studios mostly but beginning in mid-86, they switched to more arena settings and some top main events as well to pull in viewers. Vince also had the occasional "Saturday Night's Main Event" specials on NBC which were a good way to advance storylines in those pre-PPV days. Crockett was consolidating control, having swallowed Mid-Atlantic and Georgia Championship Wrestling, with Florida soon to follow and while he was still associated with the NWA, his shows were under the label of World Championship Wrestling. He benefited from a cushy two-hour slot on Saturday afternoons from a small studio that always had big stars like Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes dropping by and the weekly syndicated shows from regular arenas. The AWA has a cushy weekly slot on ESPN from arenas and you still had WCCW and Mid-South going around the syndicated markets.

The approach to these shows was varied. For the most part, they were "squash" matches where a major superstar would be placed up against a jobber (extras they called them at the time) with basically the jobber battered around and falling prey to the star's finisher to sell the guy better. For the Crockett shows, Saturday Night would be home to such matches but mostly made up of interviews of major stars (and nothing could beat when the Four Horsemen came to talk) and frankly, it was a bit off to see such major stars in a studio that made the Impact Zone look like the Pontiac Silverdome. The bigger matches were reserved for the weekly syndicated shows from arenas (with one 1987 ep devoted entirely to a classic Flair-Barry Windham battle) although there would be the annoying trend to spend the show promoting a major main event (like the Horsemen against Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Kolloff and the Road Warriors) but then end the show just as the match was about to start. Still, it was a good way for Crockett to push his part of the NWA to the forefront so most casual fans associated the entire organization with him.

For the WWF, the weekly shows would begin to have bigger matchups (like Ricky Steamboat vs Randy Savage) but they'd save the major stuff for either a PPV or one of the SNME shows. They did have a two-hour weekly show on the USA Network that at first was used as an actual talk show with Vince hosting behind a desk, Lord Alfred Hayes as his sidekick, and he'd interview stars. It morphed in the late ‘80's to basically a highlight show hosted by Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan, who would show clips from matches, take part in skits and showed some great comic timing through it all.

In 1988, another change came to the TV landscape after Vince had defeated Crockett's first couple of attempts at getting a PPV going with the first Survivor Series and Royal Rumble. Crockett fired back by scheduling the first ever Clash of the Champions to take place the same day as Wresltlemania, a two-hour showcase on TBS. To the shock of most everyone, Crockett actually pulled it off, the Clash highlighted by terrific battles including the classic Sting-Flair draw and drew monster ratings. While warned by Turner execs not to go head to head again, Crockett knew he had something and soon Clash cards were coming to TBS about every other month, each featuring terrific matches and doing great business.

Sadly, that wasn't enough to save Crockett from having to sell to Turner who made changes to the presentation. The old studio was taken down and for a while, they would do all their shows from arenas. In 1991, they would get a new studio with a bigger audience and more high-tech equipment, including a rotating ring stand. In 1993, Eric Bischoff would get the bright idea to about three months of syndicated tapings all in one weekend with a ring set outside at the Disney-MGM Studios, which caused a lot of problems with storylines down the road.

So when WWF announced they were going to do a major weekly show in prime-time, it got some attention and there were some who wondered if it was a good idea. True, their weekly USA shows were doing okay ratings but it had been long accepted that the weekends were the better time for wrestling fans to tune in, allowing them free time. But the show went on and so on January 11th, 1993, RAW went on the air.

From the start, this was something vastly different to watch for fans. It wasn't from a studio but calling it an arena would be a stretch. The Manhatten center was a wild ballroom with a fanbase clearly a bit more rowdy than the standard WWF audience. There were flashy neon signs and a big RAW entranceway that wrestlers went through. You had ring girls going around flashing signs like a boxing match. But more importantly, there was a different energy in the air, which showed in the ring as the wrestlers seemed a bit more charged in prime time, even if they were facing the job squad. The fact that it was all live sold the idea that this was cutting edge stuff and fans ate it up.

Of course, that was turned on its ear in May of '93 when Razor Ramon went up against the Kid and suffered a shocking upset loss. That same night, Marty Jannetty made a surprise return to challenge his former partner Shawn Michaels for the Intercontinental title and won it. It was soon clear to fans that this was a show where anything could happen, which made watching it more important. That spread to the weekend shows as well as they would show highlights of RAW to the non-cable audiences and get fans excited about the whole WWF product. For a year where WWF was suffering a bit financially and creatively, RAW really was a key to the company staying alive and hot. That would spread to the weekly shows too as USA would add "The Action Zone" a Sunday morning show, often live, that would feature big event matches and "Live Wire" would take advantage of the rising Internet to answer questions while doing highlights of RAW. As for RAW, while most shows were live, WWF would tape a few back to back to be spread out over the month (for example, the September 1993 shows where Razor Ramon and Rick Martel won a battle royal for the vacant IC title was taped the same night as their actual match for the belt shown the next week). Still, RAW was giving fans a whole new exciting flavor for wrestling and they bit into it in droves.

WCW was having their own problems and were trying to strike back, the Clash shows still having great matches but the weekly shows suffering. When Eric Bischoff convinced the higher-ups to sign on Hulk Hogan, WCW did their best to be more upscale. The studio got another makeover with fancy opening doors and smoke like Star Trek for the wrestlers and the Clash shows got a bit bigger too with fireworks and fancy decorations around the entranceway like huge screens (predating the Titan Tron by a few years). That still wasn't enough to catch up to WWF, however, so Turner brought Bischoff in to ask what could be done and, on the spot, Bischoff blurted "give me prime time." To his shock, Turner took about five seconds before giving him an hour on Mondays against RAW.

Now at first, Nitro didn't seem all that special. Let's face it, having a wrestling show take place in the middle of the Mall of America wasn't exactly a great thing for purists. But when Lex Luger, who had been wrestling for the WWF only a day before, showed up at the end, fans sat up to take notice. Bischoff knew he had something and soon began going to war, talking Turner into an extra hour and also the now infamous idea of going on a few minutes before RAW and telling everyone what was going to happen on the pre-taped RAW show. More importantly, Nitro seemed bigger, from larger arenas with fancy lights, fireworks and most importantly, filled the midcard with great action of light heavyweights and lucahadores, allowing "Nitro" to be a much better show from a wrestling perspective.

When Bischoff started to increase WCW's PPVs, WWF countered with their "In Your House" shows which took off better than expected. Still, things were pretty even until the NWO came around and suddenly, WCW was the show to watch as everyone wanted to see what the group would do next. WCW also played around with their twisted black and white videos by the NWO, something radically different than what had been seen before. True, ECW had been playing with some graphic stuff but they never had the budget either of the big two had and more like the WCCW of old. With ratings for RAW slumping, Vince started to fight back, first by expanding RAW to two hours, then adopting the harder "Attitude" mentality. Soon RAW had the now-familiar Titan Tron and metal landing and one weekend show was renamed "Shotgun Saturday Night", taking place at New York clubs with a wild flavor (like Marlena flashing an opponent). With the rise of Austin in popularity, RAW soon started to take back the ratings it lost and after Montreal, it only got better.

What really changed it was something Vince Russo came up with. I know, we all give him flack but Russo was pretty daring with his idea of backstage vignettes and skits filling up RAW airtime which made fans really believe they were part of the show and watching some hidden stuff. For so long, what went on in the ring was all the show was but here, fans saw dressing rooms, the backstage of arenas, parking lots and more and it just made RAW more lively than ever before. Nitro would try to duplicate that but of course, they didn't have the same skill with writers WWF had, especially when Russo took over and went overboard putting his love of angles over the in-ring action.

I don't think I need to cover the Monday Night Wars again but I will point out how the battle for ratings did signal an end to the jobber matches as both shows wanted to showcase their top stars only. Most jobber bouts were relegated to the weekend shows but even those were soon filled with mid-carders instead of no-names, ending what had been a long tradition for wrestling programming. Two more traditions ended as by 1998, the Clash shows were done away with, no longer necessary with "Nitro" and the monthly PPVs around. Of course, the downfall of WCW would end even more as the Saturday afternoon shows were canceled with absolutely no warning whatsoever and only a few months later, the final "Nitro" would be broadcast.

Since then, things have been what you see on TV as WWF keeps pushing the envelope with stuff, including some big budget destructions of cars and limos and such. Meanwhile, TNA has been doing their best as they started from the weekly PPVS to a slot on Fox Sports that wasn't too bad and even resembled a real sports show with a timer above to show the match times. The change to Spike has shifted it to a more familiar formula, albeit one that relies a lot more on backstage stuff than before and its small Impact Zone is a bit reminiscent of the old arenas shows used to be aired from.

Looking back, you can see that RAW really did change how wrestling could be presented to the masses. Not only was it live but it presented an air that anything truly could happen, a break from the more scripted and detailed shows of the time and in some ways, a throwback to the offerings of the independent promotions years before. It also showed that prime time wrestling could pull a big audience and be used as a major flagship show to advance angles and stories while keeping stars in the spotlight. Of course, you can also argue that it actually helped bring about the downfall of companies like ECW and WCW which couldn't compete with WWF/E being the major spotlight organization with such media power. More importantly, RAW was responsible for bringing in an entire new generation of fans with slick action, high production and terrific storylines and twists. So yes, the wrestling landscape would be much different if RAW hadn't come around but I don't think there's that many people who would trade it for anything.


Also around 411mania:

As noted, the ROH fans are covered in a special column by Ari, Viral Dose of Reality and Larry C.

Julian counts down the 10 greatest RAW moments.

Can They Be Champ looks to the new year.

The Shimmy counts down the 50 best WWE matches of 2007.

Don't forget Fact or Fiction, 3 R's, Triple Threat, Navigation Log, Ask411, Hidden Highlights and the rest.


For now, the spotlight is off.