10 Best Non-Attitude Era WWE RAW Moments
Electricity.
When retrospectively celebrated by both WWE and the fandom alike, the history of Monday Night RAW is almost invariably filtered through the lens of the Attitude Era.
And of course it is.
The show was at its incredible, unrecoverable zenith between 1997 and 2001, throughout which Head Writers Vince Russo and Chris Kreski elevated it from a linear pro wrestling show into, respectively, a cherished monument of rated-R hilarity, and sports entertainment’s equivalent of star-studded, shared universe prestige television.
It was a show that bred creativity—a show on which laughing stock racing drivers were able to express and elevate themselves by burying vampires as “fat bastards”, and on which every ass-kicking, sister-banging act, from the white-hot main event to a perversely entertaining midcard, served a purpose.
Today, the very name of the flagship is drenched in a sad irony. The show is no longer uncut, uncooked, nor uncensored; it is over-produced, over-scripted, and censored by PG guidelines and the controlling mentality of Vince McMahon—a man who envisioned RAW as something different, but is content now to produce something indistinguishable from its passé self.
But, either side of those four seminal years, the show has reached its grand old age for reasons beyond those seen through a rose tint…
10. The Perfect Debut
Forget X-Pac, about the only act to emerge scathed from an era that otherwise lionises everything.
There is little justice in wrestling. If there were, Sean Waltman would be remembered as the 1-2-3 Kid—the revolutionary performer who influenced WWE from both an action and personnel standpoint. He also held sway over the man who contracted his services. If you couldn’t work a good match with the big-bumping, sympathetic Kid, you couldn’t work a good match.
His victorious May ’93 debut as the 1-2-3 Kid was ingenious. He didn’t even debut as the 1-2-3 Kid here. Randy Savage mocked Vince on commentary. “What’s the Kid’s name this week?” he asked. “The Cannonball Kid,” Vince replied. ‘L. KID’ was emblazoned on his tights, but he was born a new star.
The jobbers never defeated the stars; jobbers were jobbers, and stars were stars. Since most WWE acts fall somewhere between each of those designations now, you’ll not see anything like this, the Kid’s sensational overnight switch, ever again.
It was executed so brilliantly that Razor Ramon’s aura intensified, if anything. He beat the piss out of Waltman here so disrespectfully, so viciously—with full-force slaps, Olympian throws and gruesome contortion—that Kid’s victory was far-reaching in its catharsis and influence.