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The legends have been announced, an Intercontinental Championship match has been booked, and the 25-year celebration of Monday Night Raw is almost upon us.
But how much do you really know about WWE’s flagship weekly show? Do you know what the longest match in its history is? Or the idea behind the name of the show? Or who holds the record for the most wins on Raw in a calendar year?
If you do, then you deserve to be in the WWE Fan Historian Hall of Fame. If you don’t, then we’re here to help. In this article, we take a look at ten facts about Raw that you might not have read before.
#10 John Cena has had more matches on Raw than anyone
It’s been a neck-and-neck battle between John Cena and Kane over the last couple of years, but Cena (as of the time of writing – 18 January 2018) has had the most matches in the history of Monday Night Raw.
“The Face That Runs The Place” has featured in 449 matches on the red brand's show, which is hardly surprising considering he was the company’s top full-time performer for over a decade, while Kane trails him by just two matches.
You can check out the top 10 Superstars who have had the most matches on Raw here.
#9 Sean Mooney was the first face to appear on Raw
At a time when Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker were headlining WWE cards and Randy Savage was alongside Vince McMahon on commentary, who else but Sean Mooney would be the first face to welcome fans to the first episode of Monday Night Raw?
The announcer, who worked for WWE between 1988 and 1993, began the episode by preventing replaced commentator Bobby Heenan from accessing the arena – a theme that would run and run throughout the episode.
#8 Jeff Hardy holds the record for most Raw wins in one year
Now we all know that John Cena has taken part in the most matches in Raw history, you’d imagine that he has also won the most matches in a single year on WWE’s main weekly show.
However, that's not the case. That honour goes to Jeff Hardy, who defeated star names such as Triple H, Ric Flair and Umaga as he won a calendar year record 34 matches on Raw in 2007.
#7 Over 1,200 episodes
They don’t call Monday Night Raw the longest-running weekly episodic television show in US history for nothing. Since it began on 11 January 1993, there have been 1,287 episodes of Raw (as of the time of writing – 18 January 2018).
The first episode was one-hour long and featured The Undertaker and Damien Demento in a short main event – a stark contrast to today’s Raw, which lasts three hours and often finishes with the longest match of the show.
#6 Raw has had 13 different theme songs
Monday Night Raw has had ten permanent themes and three temporary themes throughout its 25-year history, from the appropriately titled "Monday Night Raw" by Jim Johnstone in 1993 to the present-day "Enemies" by Shinedown that we hear on a weekly basis.
The best of the lot, though, has to be "Across the Nation" by The Union Underground (2002-2006), embedded above for your enjoyment.
#5 The most-watched Raw segment in history
The famous ‘This Is Your Life’ segment, in which Mick Foley threw a birthday surprise for The Rock by bringing back forgotten people from his past, raked in 8.4 million viewers – the most in Monday Night Raw history.
This is made all the more remarkable by the fact that Vince McMahon didn’t feel like the segment was that good, he has since revealed, and he was furious at the time that it ran longer than it should have.
#4 The show wasn’t always going to be called Raw
Throughout the years, we’ve known WWE’s weekly Monday show as Raw, WWE Raw, Monday Night Raw, RAW and Raw is War. However, the idea wasn’t always for the show to be called ‘Raw’.
Former WWE producer Bruce Prichard revealed on a January 2018 episode of his Something to Wrestle With podcast that Vince McMahon & Co wanted to create a new show that was “down, dirty, gritty and raw”.
People within the company at the time continued to ask “what are we going to call this ‘raw’ show?”. The ‘raw’ name stuck and it was eventually decided that the show would be called Monday Night Raw.
#3 Longest match in Raw history
The longest match in the history of Monday Night Raw was a 60-minute Ironman Match between Chris Benoit and Triple H in June 2004 for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
With the match tied at 3-3 towards the end, Evolution attempted to help HHH regain the title from Benoit, only for Eugene to interfere and knock “The Game” out with a steel chair. Benoit then slowly crawled over his opponent to make it 4-3 with five seconds to go.
#2 Longest non-ironman match in Raw history
After the Ironman Match between Chris Benoit and Triple H, the second-longest Monday Night Raw match ever was between WWE champion John Cena and Shawn Michaels in April 2007.
In a WrestleMania 23 non-title rematch, Michaels was able to get some revenge on his former tag partner by defeating him in a singles match that lasted an incredible 55 minutes, 49 seconds. It is widely considered the best match in Raw history.
#1 The greatest Raw moment of all time
There’s a general feeling among WWE fans that ‘go-home’ shows – the final Raw and SmackDown Live shows before pay-per-views – are nowhere near as important as they used to be.
Well, that certainly couldn’t be said of the 22 March 1999 episode of Monday Night Raw, when Steve Austin prepared for his WrestleMania match against The Rock by dousing his rival, as well as Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon, in beer six days before their WWE Championship encounter.
The moment was recently named the greatest in the history of Monday Night Raw.
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