Special episodes of WWE's professional wrestling television program WWE Raw
This is a list of special episodes of the professional wrestling television series WWE Raw. Throughout its broadcast history, the show has aired episodes that have different themes. Some of them are yearly events such as the WWE draft and the Slammy Awards. Others include tributes to various professional wrestlers who have recently died or retired from actively performing.
A special live episode honoring the life and career of Owen Hart, who had died the previous night after a fall accident during the Over the Edge PPV. The episode featured segments with fellow performers paying tribute to Hart, and exhibition matches with no effect on storylines.[6]
Throughout the show, Vince McMahon discussed (in kayfabe) his acquisition of WCW, including his firing of Jeff Jarrett. During a special segment simulcast with the series finale of WCW Monday Nitro from Panama City, Shane McMahon interrupted Vince to reveal that he had already signed the sale contract instead
The decision was made to postpone that night's Raw taping (initially a kayfabe memorial for the Mr. McMahon character following the previous week's limo explosion storyline) after the deaths, although the circumstances were not known at the time of the decision.
Special "commercial-free" episode guest hosted by Donald Trump (who "bought" Raw during the previous week's episode, and also announced that everyone who bought tickets would be refunded after the show).[17]
Everything in the show was also supposed to temporarily revert to the 1993 Raw format. However, while some items from 1993 were used (such as the ring and the theme music), it used the 1980s-era WWF opening as well as the stage set-up from around early 1997.
On this Christmas Eve episode, Mick Foley, dressed up as Santa Claus, got run over by Alberto Del Rio. Del Rio later faced John Cena in a Miracle on 34th Street Fight (which Cena won), in which Foley interfered.
Like the previous Old School Raw, this was more of an anachronism-type episode, with some key differences from the 2010 episode being the use of the Attitude Era theme song from the War Zone segment during backstage segments right before commercial, as well as the use of a modified 1980's WWF logo without the "F". The latter was the result of the 2012 settlement between the WWE and World Wide Fund for Nature that allowed the WWE to uncensor the Attitude Era WWF scratch logo in archival footage in exchange of no further use of any WWF logos in new, original footage.[34]
Due to a major winter storm and travel bans across Connecticut that were occurring at the time, WWE was forced to cancel a SmackDown taping in Boston and reschedule Raw for the ensuing SmackDown on Thursday. The episode comprised interviews of various WWE wrestlers, a weather report from John "Bradshaw" Layfield, plus a re-airing of the WWE Championship triple threat match and the Royal Rumble match from the night before.[52][53]
Second night of the annual WWE Draft (the first night of which was the October 11 episode of SmackDown), where wrestlers are drafted between the Raw and SmackDown brands.
Second night of the annual WWE Draft (the first night of which was the October 9 episode of SmackDown), where wrestlers are drafted between the Raw and SmackDown brands.
Second night of the annual WWE Draft (the first night of which was the October 1 episode of SmackDown), where wrestlers are drafted between the Raw and SmackDown brands.
First annual WrestleMania-themed episode of Raw, which was also the go-home episode for the show. Featured appearances from RAW and SmackDown rosters including Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns.
Monday Night RAW's return to Madison Square Garden. Featured a celebration of Rey Mysterio's 20th anniversary in WWE. It was also the first Monday Night RAW after Vince McMahon's retirement announcement.
The first hour of the Raw broadcast was commercial-free. Episode featured first TV appearances of CM Punk and Randy Orton since January 2014 and May 2022, respectively.
Raw: The Absolute Best of 2023
December 25, 2023
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A taped recap episode hosted by Jackie Redmond and Peter Rosenberg.
This was the first episode of Raw to be broadcast on Netflix. For the first time length of the show was flexible and did not have a standard running time.
^Meltzer, Dave (January 18, 1999). "January 18, 1999 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Giant Baba retires, ECW guilty as charged review, tons more". Wrestling Observer Figure Four Online. Archived from the original on October 24, 2019. Retrieved October 24, 2019. While WWF solidly won the title match head-to-head battle, as most of the Mankind vs. Rock match did a 5.9 rating to the Hogan-Nash match doing only a 4.6, WCW did gain a slight bit of moral satisfaction because its over-run, when Bill Goldberg showed up, picked the rating up to a 6.5 while WWF, with the Steve Austin run-in, the title match finish and the post-match celebration fell to a 5.1. WWF won all eight quarters . . . .