10 Massively Dubious Wrestling Records
3. Blowing Gunsmoke Up Our Ar*e
WWE has for years cooed over the "fact" that Monday Night RAW is the longest-running weekly episodic show in television history.
It isn't.
The Simpsons is a weekly episodic show. It debuted in 1989, a full four years before RAW, and continues to this day. It is equal to RAW only in that both shows are pale imitations of themselves. RAW has produced more episodes, granted - but that is not what WWE is marketing. Moreover, RAW lags well behind gameshows like Wheel Of Fortune and Jeopardy!, which are fairer comparisons in terms of rotating casts and production set-ups. "The Longest Running Weekly Episodic Television Show 9With No Off-Season)" is an awkward caveat the company just decides to ignore.
"SmackDown has become the second longest running weekly episodic program in primetime TV history, behind only WWE's “Monday Night Raw,” the company wrote in 2010 in a statement on its website. It was another lie, one designed out of desperation to cling to a mainstream usually content to ignore wrestling as a genuine cultural institution. Ironically, if WWE accepted its wrestling heritage, they could accurately crow about its success.
Only, they couldn't; Portland Wrestling ran between 1953 and 1992, dwarfing RAW's longevity.