WWE Raw Gallery: 25 Years Of Iconic Monday Nights
11. 2007 - The Darkest Hour
Dateline: 25th June, 2007
No story nor storyline compared with Vince McMahon's disparate opening of a Monday Night Raw episode understandably whitewashed from the exhaustive WWE Network archives.
The three-hour tribute was, at the time, completely understandable (and ghoulishly familiar) response. Chris, Nancy and Daniel Benoit were found dead on the day the Mr McMahon character was supposed to be laid to rest. That wretched storyline now had to perish too.
WWE is a constantly evolving beast, but there was perhaps no more significant a checkpoint in recent company history than this night. Benoit was of course stricken from the record as the reality of the situation came to the fore, but the knock-on effects from wrestling's lowest moment relating to drug use, mental health, physical wellbeing, locker room behaviour and even content output at large are still felt today.