Every WWE Raw Intro Ranked – From Worst To Best

Raw’s roster wasn’t the only thing to receive a makeover in light of the 2016 Brand Split; the show’s opening intro segment was also spiced up in keeping with this “new era” vibe.

It’s certainly a refreshing change from the previous effort, but how does this latest rendition compare against the rest of the opening packages that we’ve been treated to over the years?

This article tries to answer that as we look back at each Raw intro from the past 23 years and rank them from worst to best. First though, one quick note about the list itself.

Typically, Raw’s intro has only changed about once a year or so, and so these annual instances are the ones we'll be focusing on. I know there have been slightly adjusted intros used along the way, such as one wrestler’s mugshot replacing another if there’s been a suspension or injury or release or whatnot. It just didn’t seem worth adding all of these minor instances though, otherwise I’d been spending an entire page boring you with a description of the exact same video package save for wrestler X taking wrestler Y’s place.

So as a disclaimer, there may be one or two minor examples absent, and also there hasn’t necessarily been an entirely new intro for each and every single year. By and large though, we’ve covered all the major ones (after all, they're the ones we remember most fondly) from 1993 right up until 2016.

I’m going to put it out there; I’m actually quite a fan of this intro.

The helicopter swooping down in front of a full moon makes for a particularly striking first image, and the jump cuts to police cars and officers does add to the excitement.

It doesn’t really have anything to do with wrestling though. The first glimpse we get of a wrestler is mid-way through the video and somewhat bizarrely its Shawn Michaels gyrating on a giant WWF logo.

Subsequent shots of the roster are then interrupted with too much focus on cheerleaders and the audience, while the song’s riff sounds a little too bluesy for a wrestling show.

It was cool to see them trying something different here, especially with the whole rooftop wrestling ring, but I’m not quite sure it worked out on this occasion.