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Vince McMahon once considered building his own studio arena in the early days of WWE RAW.
While discussing WWE RAW's formative years on the NotSam Podcast, WWE Senior Executive Bruce Pritchard revealed that WWE Chairman Vince McMahon once considered buying a building and transforming it into what would become the permanent home of Monday Night Raw:
“The original concept behind doing Raw was to do a live weekly show to build a small studio arena in Stamford and the concept was to save money by doing that. To tour and then come back to Stamford on Monday and have that studio that we owned. A little arena that we owned, that we could control and ‘this is going to save money, this is going to be revolutionary that we’re not going to go rent a building."
While the idea of owning and operating a studio arena dedicated to WWE RAW sounds like a good idea on paper, it soon became clear that the scope of the production and demand for the product would outgrow the limited space:
"Flip that to several weeks later and we’re in the Manhattan Center, one of the most expensive pieces of property in the country and we are just like, ‘holy cow this became a big production.”
It's clear that there was a desire to save money during the early days of WWE RAW, which makes sense considering the unknown ground WWE and Vince McMahon were heading into. But all these worries would be put to rest with the explosion of the Attitude Era.
Vince McMahon eventually created his own 'arena' in the form of WWE Thunderdome
While it may not have been what he had in mind when originally considering building his own space to produce WWE RAW, Vince McMahon was forced into creating something totally new this year when he revealed WWE Thunderdome.
The Thunderdome has served as the home of WWE TV over the latter half of the COVID-19 pandemic and has allowed fans to become a part of the action virtually, thanks to hundreds of screens dotted around the arena and at ringside.
You can catch the upcoming RAW Legends Night live from WWE Thunderdome this upcoming Monday, where Keith Lee will challenge Drew McIntyre for the WWE Championship.
