10 Reasons WWE Raw Is Lucky To Still Be On The Air
6. Cannibals
Never given as much freedom as when they were competing with (and briefly losing to) WCW, Vince McMahon purchasing his opposition in 2001 had an almost instant impact on Monday Night Raw.
Held in high acclaim due to the historic nature of the broadcast, many forget that the Raw/Nitro simulcast was also the go-home show to long-considered-greatest-show-ever WrestleMania 17. Vince's shock and awe at his son's Panama City arrival only serviced the end of the show's first hour with a pay-per-view still to sell later that night.
The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin main evented against Kane and The Undertaker to close the show, but the die hand been cast by the over-indulgence earlier that night. The main event was a (slightly dull) attempt to feature key players one last time in a scene reminiscent of countless others that had driven the company to such dominance in the wrestling war, rather than just talking up the grandeur and spectacle of WrestleMania itself.
It foreshadowed a future for WWE focused more on being bigger and better than everybody else than actually working to stay that way. Dancing on the graves of old rivals may have worked for McMahon during his aggressive 1980s growth, but it was an increasingly uglier and counter-productive look as the years passed.