Monday Night RAW is the flagship program of the WWE umbrella, dishing up 3 hours of sports entertainment content on the USA Network, on a weekly basis. Along with SmackDown Live, WWE RAW forms what is considered to be the ‘main roster’ of WWE and RAW is alternatively referred to as the A-Show, as well as the ‘red brand’.
The May 6, 2024 episode of Monday Night RAW will be the 1615th episode of RAW and will take place at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. The episode will be the first WWE programming after Backlash France.
Professional wrestling has been a staple of Monday nights since 1993 when WWE RAW first aired from the Manhattan Center. While the show originally aired live, certain episodes would be taped after an episode was telecast live, to save costs over the long haul.
Everything would change after the arrival of WWE’s competitors- World Championship Wrestling whose flagship show WCW Monday Nitro (a play on Monday Night RAW) would surpass WWE RAW in ratings for weeks on end. WCW and the man at the helm, Eric Bischoff, were not afraid to play dirty and would often give out the results of taped RAW shows on air. This would lead to RAW going live more often, and also adding an extra hour (going from 1 hour to 2) to counter World Championship Wrestling programming.
WWE RAW would go to 3 hours from the year 2012, which marked the 1000th episode of the brand. Monday Night RAW would celebrate its 20th Anniversary in 2012 and its 25th Anniversary in 2018, both with very special shows. It currently airs on USA Network. Digitally, fans can watch episodes of RAW on the WWE Network. But, the network has ceased to operate in USA and fans can watch the same on Peacock TV.
RAW is WAR
At the peak of the Monday Night Wars with WCW, the latter gained the lead by a significant margin with the nWo angle, which was a lot edgier than anything WWE was putting on. In order to compete with World Championship Wrestling, WWE RAW would change its name to RAW is War in the year 1997, in line is what is known as the Attitude Era of WWE, where the programming became a lot more mature than it was.
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, the RAW is WAR name was retired for obvious reasons and just became WWE RAW. A brand split would happen after Vince McMahon purchased his competition WCW, owing to an over-abundance of talent as the RAW roster and the SmackDown roster would become exclusive to their brands, and this would last all the way until the year 2011, before returning in 2016.
WWE RAW Theme Song
Since the inception of the show, WWE Raw has had some stellar introduction show to kick-off the show every Monday night. Check out all the theme songs of WWE Raw below.
Theme Song
Artist
Active Duration
Monday Night RAW
Jim Johnston
1993-1997
RAW
Jim Johnston
1993-1995
I Like it RAW
Jim Johnston
1995-1995
The Beautiful People
Marilyn Manson
1997-1997
Thorn in your Eye
WWE Superstars and Slam Jam
1997-2002
We're All Together Now
WWE Superstars and Slam Jam
1997-2002
Across the Nation
The Union Underground
2002-2006
To Be Loved
Papa Roach
2006-2009
Burn into the Ground
Nickelback
2009-2012
Tonight is the night
Outasight
2012 ( One Night Only)
The Night
CFO$
2012-2014
The Night Remix
CFO$
2014-2016
Enemies
Shinedown
2016-2018
Born for Greatness
Papa Roach
2018-2019
Charge up the Power
Goodbye June
2018-2019
Legendary
Skillet
2019-2020
The Search
NF
2020-2021
Greatness
Vo Williams
2021- Present
WWE RAW Roster
The WWE RAW roster consists of WWE Superstars, on-air personnel like ring announcers, commentators and backstage interviewers, referees and a very efficient backstage staff that make sure that the shows run smoothly. The WWE Championships that are native to WWE RAW are the following- The WWE Championship, the RAW Women’s Championship and the RAW Tag Team Championship.
The Judgement Day
The Intercontinental Championship and The United States Championship take turns shuffling between RAW and SmackDown Live based on the Superstar Shake-Up. The WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships are not native to either brand and are featured prominently on RAW. Owing to the Wild Card Rule, many Champions from SmackDown Live have been featured on RAW as well. The WWE Championship is draped around the waist of the top male in the division while the RAW Women’s Championship is used to denote the top female Superstar.
Current WWE RAW Champions
Championship
Current Champion
Event won
Previous Champion
World Heavyweight Championship
Damian Priest
WrestleMania XL Night Two
Drew McIntyre
Women's World Championship
Vacant
Monday Night RAW
Rhea Ripley
Intercontinental Championship
Sami Zayn
WrestleMania XL Night One
Gunther
WWE Tag Team Championship
The Miz and R-Truth
WrestleMania XL Night One
Damian Priest and Finn Balor
Women's Tag Team Championship
Kabuki Warriors
RAW
Kayden Carter and Katana Chance
RAW General Managers
While Triple H, Kevin Dunn, and Bruce Prichard among others, are in charge of the RAW program, there have been several on-screen characters through history who’ve donned the role of the RAW General Manager, playing the part of the authority figure. Some of the most famous on-screen General Managers are Eric Bischoff, John Laurinaitis, Mick Foley, and Kurt Angle. There have been other WWE Superstars in charge of RAW on camera including Baron Corbin and Alexa Bliss. Currently, Adam Pearce acts as the on-screen executive.
Perhaps the most infamous of all the RAW General Managers was Hornswoggle.
Hottest RAW news on Sportskeeda
To stay up to date with the WWE RAW Schedule, including RAW tapings, pay-per-views, and Live Events, stay tuned to Sportskeeda for the latest updates and information.
WWE RAW Results will be made available immediately after the show, and a Live Card happens during the show so that you can stay apprised in case you missed the action.
Post-event coverage is bound to happen, including a very special ‘Best and Worst’ Column. WWE News and WWE Rumors based on Monday Night RAW, in addition to SmackDown, NXT 2.0, NXT Europe, and Premium live events will also be available on Sportskeeda Wrestling.
WWE RAW airs live on USA Network and can be viewed later on Peacock TV in the United States. Viewers elsewhere can watch the programming on WWE Network.
Monday Night RAW is 180 minutes (3 hours) long including the commercials.
The first-ever WWE RAW was held on January 11, 1993.
On RAW, Damian Priest is the World Heavyweight Champion, Becky Lynch is the Women's World Champion, Sami Zayn is the Intercontinental Champion, The Awesome Truth are the Men's Tag Team Champions and Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair are the Women's Tag Team Champions.
