50 Greatest WWE Raw Moments Ever

Nothing banks on the power of the rule-proving exception more than professional wrestling. Endless pitches going both ways between endless bookers and endless talents have led to endless segments that have generated endless streams of opinions, but for all the failures, it only ever takes one unlikely success story for the cycle to repeat.

The malleability of wrestling removes so many of the guidelines that otherwise in life provide structure and clarity. Never assume with certainty. Never set hard-and-fast rules. Never commit to dogmatism. WWE in 1998 certainly didn't.

A show that looked so much like Stone Cold Steve Austin that you could be fooled into thinking it was called "Austin 3:16" rather than "Raw Is War", the company's flagship toasted then normalised a brand of violence and chaos that borrowed liberally from ECW with the added benefit of a market leader's sheen. How, then, did a sock, balloons, a clown, a wrestler disguised as a doctor and an assault with a bedpan instantly install itself as one of the greatest segments in the history of the show?

In the wrong hands, that selection of props would have been another example of yet more absurd gimmickery from wrestling's worst offender. Kept literally in Steve Austin's and Mick Foley's though, it was simply sublime. Far from tone deaf, the sweet sound of the p*ss-pot connecting with Vince McMahon's head has a symphonic quality even today. As do the strained squeals of 'SOCKO' from Mankind as he innocently attempted to turn McMahon's frown upside down and created a brand new gimmick and temporary cultural icon in the process.