8 Things WWE Want You To Forget About The Raw After WrestleMania

7. Encore!

no way jose
WWE.com

...which was certainly the case during the first ever post-WrestleMania Raw.

The 5 April 1993 edition of the not-yet-flagship show attempted to turn cynical booking into cynical profit by driving as many viewers to order an encore airing the following Monday night. Pay-per-view replays weren't available at the time, nor were they free.

"What a WrestleMania just last night, one of the greatest WrestleManias of all time," wailed Vince McMahon as the show kicked off. It dripped with insincerity - because it was b*llocks. Vince was delivering his sales pitch from the safety of a Raw television taping two weeks before the event itself.

"Now it's the present," Randy Savage lied, as the pair ran down the card with nary a further mention to the fact that Hulk Hogan had somehow won the WWE Title despite not even being in the main event.

The show continued in the same vein, with Savage and Vince in post-produced commentary making allusions to some of the show's happenings without any live or in-ring comments giving the game away.

WWE did respectable business with the replay orders too, broadly justifying the unsavoury tactics.

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett