10 Historic 2002 Raw & SmackDown Moments To Check Out On WWE Network

2. WWF Gets Renamed WWE

2002 will forever be known as the year that the World Wrestling Federation changed forever. Due to an ongoing lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund, Vince McMahon's promotion were forced to change their branding to World Wrestling Entertainment. it was a strange time to be a pro wrestling fan, and even those under contract had a hard time adjusting to the switch. On numerous occasions, Jim Ross and Jerry 'The King' Lawler used the WWF moniker instead of WWE. Nowadays, the latter brand has been accepted, but it did take a while before fans really started to realise that the WWF was no more. In order to hammer home the point, the promotion put together an advertising campaign that was simple with its message. 'Get The 'F' Out' was the mantra, as WWE looked to move forward into a new dawn. For Vince McMahon, this wasn't exactly the worst case scenario, because it allowed him to put more focus on the entertainment aspect of what the group presented. Officially, the first WWE broadcast was the May 6th edition of Raw.