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When did raw get good?

Hey scott, 

So a friend of a friend sent this over to me.  Guy basically tries to find the reverse jump the shark moment and for raw he chose May 26th 1997.  Is there really one episode/moment when RAW became can't miss?  Is there an episode that sticks out for you?


​Yeah, last night when Rusev triumphed over the forces of Ireland and brought the US title back to Mother Russia!  

Anyway, we here in Canada have a totally different perspective on the Monday Night Wars, of course, given that Nitro wasn't a thing up here and we couldn't just flip between the shows.  But I recall that the Sid v. Bret cage match with "You don't know shit!" and all that really set the stage and felt like the first time in a long while where we really HAD to see the show on Mondays so as not to miss anything.  ​

Comments

  1. I think I would concur with that. RAW 1997 was fascinating to watch as it was a WWE like we had never scene before as it got more and more edgy. Nitro still dominated the ratings and was a good show with their something for everyone style of shows but RAW's transformation to Attitude ERA and stuff like the emergence of HHH, beginning of DX, Mankind's first face turn, Harts vs. Austin/USA was a very underrated time for the show.

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  2. Personally I was all in with Raw after Bret Hart left. The product just exploded with Montreal. Not a Raw moment but the Badd Blood main event also really brought me back to WWF and further away from WCW which was being victimized by standards and practices around this time.

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  3. Even though there were some shaky episodes afterwards, I think the Raw the night after the Rumble when Bret walked out and the title scene was wide open was where things started to seem better.


    The Bret cage incident was the official launch though.

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  4. I’d stopped watching WWF as a 12 year old in 1994 as all my childhood heel favourites had gone
    or were now just lame (Flair, Perfect, Luger), all my friends had already
    stopped watching, and we didn’t even get Raw which was where everything
    interesting seemed to happen. Everytime I checked in over the next few years it
    looked terrible, but when I turned on randomly in the summer of 1997 as a
    teenager and Raw had turned into this awesome, dark, edgy, adult show, I was
    hooked in right away. We just got the internet then too and getting to read all
    the ‘smart’ stuff helped bring me back into the fold as well. Raw was SO badass
    to a 15 year old in 1997 though. So badass.

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  5. Oh man, I LOVE that Raw. Bret throwing his big temper tantrum and then Austin coming out and tearing him the fuck down verbally. Such a great angle.

    The thing that WWF had going for it the best in '97 was the sheer unpredictability and odd blend of work and shoot that made everything feel more "real0". It's really eerie how everything they did with Bret Hart's character starting from his return in late '96 indirectly led to the screwjob. He was constantly paranoid of a conspiracy to screw him over, but everyone just called him a crybaby who needed to shut the fuck up instead of blaming everyone for his losses and then...that's precisely what happened in the end.

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  6. YOU SCREWED ME EVERYBODY SCREWED ME

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  7. 1997 Raw is the greatest year of wrestling television ever produced. However late 96 was pretty good too. I'd say start at Bret announcing that he has re-signed. Think of it as a prequel.

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  8. The Raw in Nashville the night after Final Four was awesome too with Sid beating Bret for the belt. You also had the Manhattan Center Raw which was tons of fun, and then the new set debut a week later. The only shit Raw after that was the South Africa one...other than that, they were really exciting and gritty.

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  9. There is some good stuff in the build up to the Rumble too. Sid Power Bombing Jose's kid through a table was awesome.

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  10. Another thing I love about 1997 Raw is that it is exactly what ECW would have looked like if they had any money.

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  11. Yep, agreed. It really started once Sid took the title and the picture became blurred with five or six guys all chasing the belt. It was different than the usual champion/challenger style and really freshened things up.

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  12. It seemed like early 97 was when they finally figured out to just let Pillman loose.

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  13. I love the Hart/Michaels interview that turns into a brawl after Sid, - and shortly after - The Undertaker and Vader get to the ring.

    really one of the first times there was actual "shades of grey" booking with no clear faces and heels anymore (which, I guess ironically enough, was scaled a lot back in 1998).

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  14. btw: the German perspective on the "Monday Night Wars" = no flipping of the channels needed, because Nitro and Raw were aired on the same channel on different nights of the week.

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  15. The answer is pretty obvious: Thursday RAW Thursday.

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  16. Totally agree with the emailer and Scott. The Bret/Sid cage match episode was the beginning of Raw as we know it.....or as we KNEW it I should say.

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  17. the first time WWF proved to be able to book compelling 2 hours shows was Austin's injury to Bret, followed through up to Austin posing as the ambulance driver and attacking Bret there... talked about in Bret's book as the first time the company successfully wove a story throughout the show and was the blueprint they still try to follow today

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  18. "I got screwed by Shawn Michaels.....the boy toy." -----easily one of the gayest lines in WWE history.

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  19. That may be the best episode of RAW ever. Austin driving the ambulance was such a great twist.

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  20. The first step to greatness of Rocky Maivia!

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  21. Whatever happened to that fanny pack wearing dork?

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  22. That Sid/Bret cage match episode is nuts. It's basically the entire episode, which I think is an awesome conceit to throw out there every now and then. Austin constantly finding new ways to pop out of the woodwork to fuck things up is fantastic, and was the point I feel he truly became a star. It's definitely one of his defining, if unheralded moments as a character.

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  23. Raw in 1997-98 was can't miss TV. From top to bottom there was something for everyone.

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  24. It's kind of funny how awful they are at following the blueprint they established. They think simply having the same characters interact at various points in a show is an overarching story. I feel like there should some prerequisite for writers before they're allowed into a creative meeting where they have to sit down for like their first two weeks and just watch RAWs from '97 through mid '98 non-stop for eight to ten hours a day.

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  25. Yup, they even gave us Scott Putski!

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  26. The Raw after Summerslam 2005 was my jump off point. I was super pissed HBK wasn't staying heel and Jericho's last match felt like a fitting end. Raw was no longer appointment TV for me after that.

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  27. Everyone really has their own timeframe really. And while raw was must see before Spring of 98, Waltman showing up and just lighting up the wars with that promo was fantastic and easily one of the best moments of the wars. Especially since it seems to get lost in the shuffle of things

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  28. Jobbed the IC title to Owen and was never heard from again. Sad.

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  29. I'd actually extend that to Wrestlemania XV. That was when things went off the rails completely. RAW was essential through Summerslam '98, lost a bit of direction until Survivor Series, made a quick correction with Rock's re-heel turn, then lost the plot after that awful Wrestlemania. I'm amazed things got so good in 2000, because everything after Wrestlemania XV was like my worst nightmare for what the product could have been at the time. Undertaker vs. Austin...AGAIN! Vince is a heel...AGAIN! The Corporate Ministry of Unions Concerning Ridiculously Named Factions. Billy Gunn, Serious Singles Wrestler.

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  30. Fun if disheartening fact: that was the first Raw with Russo as the head writer.

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  31. "You call yourself Gorilla Monsoon, yet all you do is come out here and hee-haw like a jackass!"

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  32. I'd say late 96 when Bret came back, things picked up on Raw. You had Austin/Pillman, HHH/Mero/Perfect, Jim Ross shooting, toughman matches with Mankind/Austin/Vader.

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  33. "You sit and call yourself the Gorilla, but you hee haw out here like a jackass." Lawler's reaction was classic.

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  34. Goddamn right!!!

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  35. I agree with Scott on the Bret Hart tirade after the cage match against Sid. Austin was already becoming a force, but that began to cement it, ran into WrestleMania 13 nicely by making Austin/Hart a white hot match, where Austin became a mega-star and set the top angle that would produce great TV all summer (even though the bulk of the viewers were slow to catch on, as ratings didn't improve for a while). I think if you wanted to pick some later dates, you could say the Raw from MSG that September that had Austin stunning Vince and the HHH/Cactus Jack match, or even further to the Raw after the Royal Rumble with the Austin/Tyson brawl. But, I don't think you can go any further past that one, as they were on a roll by then.

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  36. And the horrible booking was beginning to become evident (in WCW).

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  37. The brand split in 2002 pretty much had that effect on me. The Raw roster was so thin and lame. That's when I checked out.

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  38. Raw in February 2003 where the whole show revolved around the announcement that Stone Cold was returning at No Way Out. Bischoff, Val Venis and JR were all hired and rehired in the same show

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  39. It would have been better if Austin slimed him instead.

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  40. The Raw the night after Survivor Series 1996 which features an AWESOME Stone Cold vs. Mankind match.


    That show went up against the equally awesome Nitro where Bischoff was revealed to be the leader of the nWo.

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  41. Russo leaving really was the best thing for the product. The year between Survivor Series 1999 and Unforgiven 2000 was awesome. (Oddly enough I just realized that was the exact period Austin was out)

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  42. I was on hiatus from wrestling from summer '93 to the end of '97. The combination of late '97 WCW and early '98 WWF brought me back in a big way. The Tyson/Austin/Vince/DX run-up to WrestleMania 14 in particular made wrestling seem like something awesome again.

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  43. As soon as Nitro became a thing and WWE actually had to try for a change.

    So late 1995 I'd say.

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  44. When DX was formed by HHH and he single handedly brought about the ratings dominance over Nitro.

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  45. Austin and Rock were great supporting players.

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  46. My favorite RAW episodes of all time were in mid-late 97. Austin drives the ambulance, The MSG RAW, the episode in Halifax. Im sure there's more I'll find when I have time to look it up.

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  47. I would say late '96 right around the time of the Jim Ross heel promo but that whole period was really jarring because 70% of those shows would be outdated cartoonish garbage because Vince was still trying to cling onto the 1980's much like how hippies in the 1970's spent that decade still trying to cling onto the 1960's but nearly every episode would have that one memorable segment that felt edgy and modern whether it would be Jim outing Vince as the owner, Brian Pillman pointing a gun at Steve Austin, Bret Hart namedropping WCW in his comeback speech or Shawn Michaels dropping his goody two shoes persona one step at a time.

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  48. You could tell as early as late-96 that the company has a whole was really onto something. You had the slow rise of Austin beginning, the first moments of a Bret heel turn, HBK's character evolving. Just good times all around.

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  49. I think I finally stopped watching around 2009 or 2010. But I can't recall anything from that time when I did watch (but not really pay attention). I just remember Jericho in a suit, Batista wasn't on (he was on SD I think, and I never watched SD), Legacy or Rated RKO maybe? DX vs. Spirit Squad.


    I don't even remember who was champion.

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  50. Hogan face turn. Not that he was all over Raw but his face turn coincided with a downturn. Picked up with Evolution particularly leading up to Batista face turn and then fell apart in 2005.

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  51. That'll put buttskis in the seats.

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  52. Didn't Vince appear on Raw in 2003 and flat out say "This show SUCKS!"

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  53. Wasn't that angle started by Vince going on Raw and straight up telling Bischoff "This show SUCKS!"?

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  54. For me it was that Raw in 97 where Austin beat the shit out of Bret in the street fight and hijacked the ambulance.

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