101 Shocking Wrestling Plans You Won't Believe Almost Happened
2. Raw Becoming WCW’s Flagship
Honestly, it's astonishing that it took the USA Network saying 'no chance in hell' to this. The WWF, including lead decision maker Vince, wanted to turn their flagship show Raw into a WCW program. They'd either have kept the Raw Is War name and went with WCW Raw, or they'd have turned the Monday night show into Nitro.
Either one would've knocked the industry on its butt in 2001.
Executives at USA were shaking their heads as soon as they caught wind of this scheming. To them, it made zero sense to reward a brand (WCW) that had failed on other networks and gone out of business. If nobody else wanted Monday Nitro on the airwaves, then neither did USA. They especially didn't like the thought of it supplanting Raw, which had a proven track record of success.
To put things into perspective, this would be like WWE buying TNA outright today, then deciding to replace Raw with Impact weekly. Netflix wouldn't let that happen. They couldn't. It was the Raw brand they bought, not someone else's homework. So, with that in mind, it isn't hard to see why USA Network said 'don't you bloody dare' to McMahon on turning Raw into a WCW product.
It's stunning that this was even considered at all. Raw had been running since 1993 and was the proven WWF platform. Meanwhile, SmackDown had only been around since 1999 and definitely wasn't on par with Monday's offering by 2001. Turning Raw into WCW's showcase would've represented a massive, massive risk.