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THE LOST RAW MOMENT
While looking over the list of events and angles that list the "Greatest Raw Moments" of all time, there's one hot summer night that seems to be overlooked. With all due respect to such activives as Kurt Angle moonsaulting off a cage, on July 8, 2001, Monday Night Raw was taken to the Extreme and the Invasion PPV was saved.
During a tag match featuring WCW vs the WWF in Atlanta, Tommy Dreamer and Rob Van Dam suddenly attacked Kane and Chris Jericho. As a slew of WWF talent hit the ring for save, it was apparent all of these men all held a past bond. Of course, all of them were former ECW workers, and in a flash, The Dudley Boyz, Justin Credible, Raven, Tazz, and others were once again part of ECW, even if it in angle only. Joined by Lance Storm and Mike Awesome (WCW stars in storyline), Team Extreme was reunited, led by Paul Heyman who gave a tremendous speech to inject ECW into the then-flailing WCW Invasion angle.
Ironically, the angle took place in Atlanta, the long-time home of WCW, which taunted, hunted, and ripped apart at Extreme Championship Wrestling's heart and soul for almost it's entire existence. In a city where the likes of Booker T and Buff Bagwell should have been the conquering heroes, it was ECW's Innovator of Violence and Mr PPV that spawned the biggest reaction and chant of the night, as the crowd was solidly behind ECW.
Of course, by the end of the night, Stephanie McMahon was announced as the new "owner" of ECW, destroying all hope for the long-term angle, and the Invasion soon sputtered into the silly Alliance between WCW and ECW, sing-along tributes to Steve Austin, and some of the hardest working performers of 2000 becoming the background extras of 2001's wrestling scnee, but for one brief moment, everyone got to re-live their memories and say goodbye to their ECW favorites, all at once.
That's what a true Raw moment should be. Emotion. It's rather that as I am writing this, I realize that two years ago, to the day, Extreme Championship Wrestling promoted it's last ever live event. My, how the wrestling world has changed, and none of it for the better. But even in death, ECW was able to pull out it's greatest asset - the emotion it invoked within its' fans - one last time. The WWE may not want to acknowledge one of it's greatest Raw moments ever, but true fans of ECW and wrestling will never forget what a magic moment it was, truly an electric night, that unfortunately, was forgotten far too soon due to creative dysfunction within WWE.
MORE RAW THOUGHTS
Wouldn't it be great to see a collection of the "worst" Raw moments ever as part of the broadcast this Tuesday. NBC did this during their anniversary telecast last year and it made for a lot of fun. Who wouldn't want to see the likes of Friar Ferguson again? How about the Repo-Man jumping Randy Savage....for his cowboy hat? A tongue-in-cheek look at some of the sillier, ill-conceived moments could make for a few great laughs. Hell, they can even take a note from NBC and throw that XFL clip in there!
It would also be nice if the promotion made a mention of those who had worked for the promotion during the Raw era and have unfortunately passed away. From Brian Pillman to Gorilla Monsoon, all had an effect on the WWE product and should be remembered accordingly.
Note from Mike: As it turned out, WWE did indeed include an ode to "bad gimmicks" as well as a memorial segment during their Raw tenth anniversary show.
If anyone should be the winner of the best Raw superstar, it's Steve Austin. Whether he has agreed to return or not, they should make him the winner.
Who's ready for all the backlash if Bret Hart shows up? Who's ready for all the complaints if he doesn't? Who wants to bet the same person would be behind the complaints and/or backlash anyway?
LIVE THOUGHTS ON THE RAW TENTH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
The following comments were originally written on January 15, 2003, with my thoughts on attending the anniversary special (which was aired on Spike TV and later released on DVD), live. The show was one of the last major events held in the WWE's World complex before it closed it's doors and signs of that concept coming to an end were noticeable at the time.
RAW X LIVE THOUGHTS AND NOTES
I attended the live presentation of the Raw Tenth Anniversary show at the World in Manhattan on 1/14. There's two hours I'll never get back. As well documented by the responses online and here on the site, it was a completely throwaway show and a real disappointment given how the WWE teased performers from the past showing up. I mean, honestly, they couldn't at least track down Bob Backlund or someone of similar stature? That said, it was nice checking out the old clips, particularly the music video set to those who had passed on and the montage featuring the sillier, bad gimmicks of the past. I had suggested such ideas in my last column and I was glad to see WWE had someone in the office with similar thoughts.
The biggest story of the night was who wasn't there. Well, most of the big names that made Raw what it is weren't there, but it was really a sad statement on the current WWE product when they couldn't get Mick Foley to make an appearance since he lives in the general vicinity. It makes sense not to give away Steve Austin's return on such a show, but Foley appearing would have at least made up for the non-appearance of Bret Hart. Whether the promotion ever actually teased Hart appearing or not, a good percentage of fans went in expecting to see him, and Foley could have eased that disappointment. Additionally, while an Austin appearance wasn't likely, Vince McMahon pushing the fact that Austin wasn't "invited" didn't do much to appease the portion of his audience that has become increasingly disenchanted with the product of late.
As for the live presentation of the show, there were two sections of the World last night - the crowded area surrounding where the workers sat, and the back portion of the facility where those who had dinner sat quietly.
Getting into the place was a logistical nightmare, as doors that were supposed to open at 7 didn't open for quite some time after, which was made worse by the extremely cold weather Tuesday night.
They were still setting up after the crowd was allowed into the facility. How do they wait until then to prepare for seating arrangements? Worse still, one had to spend a minimum $20 in order to be seated at a table, which is commonplace at some bars and comedy clubs, but came off like they were whoring the fans out after a $15 cover. I've seen some reports from fans stating they were told they could only sit at a table for an hour, which is even worse. Who is behind that notion that celebration equals screwing your most loyal fans, since they are the ones who would care enough to show up?
Even the food seemed subpar, as the desert that is the best the facility has to offer (their brownie sundae) was easily the worst ever since they've opened. What in the World is going on there, pun intended?
Live Notes from the show: Bubba Ray Dudley was the only worker I noted as having ventured into the crowd to spend time with fans before the proceedings....there was a VIP area roped off in the back for WWE office staffers....During commercial breaks, Josh Matthews and Terri Runnels did interviews with workers (perhaps for a DVD release?). Scott Steiner actually discussed working the early Raw tapings at the Manhattan Center....The Rock segment completely killed the live show as the live audience (right or wrong) saw him as someone too good for wrestling now and turned on him. While his bit on Team Angle was cute, Rocky's lines come off rather dated....How ironic to have Smackdown star Edge closing out the Raw show with a speech?....I hope the next time Triple H and Stephanie McMahon have a segment together on WWE programming, they don't use it to get over an inside joke no one but they care about. I mean, honestly, what was that all about??...Austin as Superstar of the Decade was a no-brainer....On a personal note, It was nice to see Brian Pillman remembered with his mentions on the show, but wow the negatives sure were many and the positives were a scant few last night.
A fire in the Paramount Building, which houses the World, turned exiting the venue into a nightmare for fans and workers alike. The fire was on the sixth floor, a second alarm blaze that took 125 fire fighters to get it under control. When you walked out of the venue, there were fire trucks everywhere, which living in New York, was rather surreal to see that area empty and shut down at any time of day. For the New York Daily News report on the fire, click here. It's rather amazing they didn't evacuate the World when you think about it.
Mike Johnson can be reached at Mike@PWInsider.com.
