A lot of younger wrestling fans will - quite rightly - point at Monday Night Raw as being the flagship show of WWE programming. Routinely, Raw gets far more attention than Smackdown, or any other weekly show for that matter. For the broadcast to become so important and beloved, things must have started with a bang, right? Wrong. The first episode was only one hour long, and nothing much of note really happened! Worse yet, the show was headlined by a throwaway encounter between The Undertaker and the long-forgotten madman, Damien Demento. Sure, this was a bold new adventure for the then-WWF, and the first television show the company had produced in a long time that wasn't festooned with pre-taped footage, but that doesn't change the fact that this wasn't quite the hot start many fans not watching at the time might think. There were people complaining about the show at the time, which is mind-blowing. Raw has become such a staple of the wrestling world, and it's difficult to imagine that there were some folks who weren't exactly blown away by it all. In fact, several magazines of the time even claimed the show would never last!
Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.
