The Special Episodes of Monday Night Raw (1993 – 2007)

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This video chronicles every special episode of WWF / WWE Monday Night Raw from 1993 up to the end of 2007. Episodes of Raw covered include the debut episode of Monday Night Raw, the Raw Bowl in 1996, the “Raw is War” rebranding in 1997, Thursday Raw Thursday, Friday Night’s Main Event, Raw Roulette and loads more.

This is part 1 of a series that aims to cover each special and unique episode of Raw that aired on cable television. More parts will be uploaded to YouTube soon.

#WWF #WWE #Raw

[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] in the United States rosby on cable television for an incredible 31 years but that all changes in 2025 when the show gets moved to Netflix during those 31 years we had a lot of special episodes of raw or unusual episodes that didn’t follow standard procedure so let’s run down each and every one of these raw specials that areir on cable television we’ll look at every special from the beginning of 1993 to the end of 2007 in this video 30 specials in total and then I’ll upload more videos looking at more specials in the future so that each and every unique edition of raw gets looked at Ros Premiere airing on June 11th 1993 this one came from the Manhattan Center and it featured the Undertaker taking on Damian Demento in the main event this is where it all begins all the highs all the lows it all goes back to this very episode of Monday Night Raw this was the first raw that served as a dedicated recap show the SummerSlam spectacular happen the previous night and the WWF decided to show highlights and moments from the spectacular instead of putting on new matches they did air the Lex Luger I’ll be your hero music video on this episode so it’s not a complete waste of your time this episode is not available on the WWE Network or peacock however the SummerSlam spectacular is available to celebrate R’s birthday the WWF brought William Shatner in as a guest on Jerry lawers Kings Court an N title match also took place with ow heart getting a shot at Razer Ron’s championship and the show was main evented with a tuxedo match hard frinkle versus Harvey whippman yes The Tuxedo match was placed after the IC title match with WCW Nitro debut on the week prior the WWF strangely countered by ushering in a new WWF season even though the company had never used Seasons before it was also a complete banded effort saying his raw was taped so all this new season stuff was added into the show later on through graphics and dub commentary from Lawler and McMahon the new fall season was nothing but market and bollocks really but this episode does feature the I Like It Raw show intro with vocals every time this intro aired they used an instrumental remix instead but here you get the full song great and really there’s nothing remarkable happening at this show but the Shawn Michaels versus psycho Sid mean event is worth checking out Vince McMahon wore a highly appropriate costume for the wwf’s Halloween special on October 30th 1995 the show has a really cheesy intro with Todd Pettingill doing his best dular impersonation and funnily enough we get another razor rone versus ow heart match only this time it is in the main event the show’s also notable for featuring The in ring Raw debut of gold dust the bizarre one’s official debut was the night before at in your house 3 but I think the Savio Vega match was a little better than Goldust match with Marty janetti apart from the commentators looking dumb and Doc Hendrick looking even dumber there’s nothing really spooky about this episode at all this was a weird episode of raw that was themed around the Super Bowl the raw Bowl itself was a special Four Corners tag team elimination match and it was pretty cool how they changed the canvas for this episode of Raw although the mat didn’t get put to good use here at all seeing as the only other match that took place was a diesel versus mbel encounter an encounter that lasted mere seconds and featured one move from diesel a big boot it’s funny how Diesel and Mel actually headlined a pay-per-view a few months prior and now Kevin Nash was beating big meble in a matter of seconds to be fair the WWF put more effort into the raw bow than they did for their Halloween special back in October though that doesn’t mean it’s a great show or anything they even wasted time as you want a replay of the hog pan match from in your house 5 raw moving from Monday nights every now and then is something the company would have to get used to before they were doing record numbers the WWF would get their Flagship show bumped at different nights quite a lot in order to make way for more important programming such as the uh Westminster dog show in the US Open to their cred the WWF would try to change up their irregular shows by adding themes or special matches and on September 6th 1996 they named their Friday Night episode of Raw raw Championship Friday sha Michels defended his WWF championship against Goldust in the main event and the undercard featured first round tournament matches for the IC title the first ever two episode of Raw came from the Toronto Skydome and it’s a pretty interesting show indeed Shawn Michaels Sid and Brad Hart had a triple threat match on this night but it didn’t make it to TV a noteworthy match here saying is the Bret Hart versus Shawn Michaels Feud was so hot at the time instead fans got a Bret har and Shawn Michael promo that was still pretty good and matches the dead air on TV included Mark Marill versus Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin versus verer the beginning of 1997 did have a lot of strange and unusual episodes of raw none of which really helped the company and their ongoing war against world championship wrestling a highly noteworthy episode of Raw the Creed a significant bump on the Road to WrestleMania 13 raw got moved to Thursday February 13th and it was on this day when Shawn Michaels announced to the world that he’ lost his smile HBK would forfeit the WWF Championship near weeks before WrestleMania and therefore the WWF scrambled to put together new story lines and new matches for the Showcase of the Immortals the rock also won his first singles championship at this show baiting Triple H for the IC belt in the opening March the WF taped a series of matches in Germany that aired on the 3rd of March 1997 on the USA Network the company held a tournament to Crown a new European Championship the First new title belt the WWF had introduced in quite some time while the whole tournament wasn’t shown on TV the final match between Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith was and that particular match serves as one of the greatest ever in raw history the Bulldog becomes the first ever European Champion when all said and done though there still seems to be some underlying issues between dve and on when Raw goes off the air other matches on this show include Brad Hart versus Triple H and psycho Sid versus Mankind the WWF declared war on their competition by rebranded Monday Night Raw on the 10th of March 1997 raws War featured a brand new entrance way with a Jan screen new logos new Transitions and Graphics a new intro and over time the set would evolve to include new ring aprons new new Bonners and a few small additions including scaffolds at each side of the screen everything about Ros War felt incredibly fresh but the debut of this new look was more of a necessity than anything else raw looked incredibly dated when compared to WCW Nitro and this new look helped a lot in regards to making the wwf’s flagship show look more modern Rose War would become the show of The wwf’s Attitude Era and still to this day people think the Ros War set is the best set the WWF ever utilized for their Flagship weekly show while not strictly episodes of raw I thought these were worth including see as these two Friday night man event shows aired in Lou of raw the Westminister dog show took over Monday nights and rather than moving raw to Friday night like they did back in September 1996 the WWF a 2 special shows that took the old Saturday night’s Main Event formula of showing main event matches at the beginning of the broadcasts over these two weeks we got to see Triple H versus Undertaker Bret heart versus Vader the Patriot versus Owen heart and the British Bulldog versus Dude Love These shows are not available on the WWE Network or peacock unfortunately the WWF returned to the Skydome for a special Saturday Night episode of Raw and the difference between this Skydome raw in comparison to the 1997 Edition is like night and day 41,43 to fans showed up for the event the largest attendance in raw history and while the show was taped for American audiences it did air live for Canadian fans on TSN the show was headlined with Stone Cold Steve Austin attempting to run the corporate Gauntlet but the real main event happened earlier in the night when our main man Steve Blackman took on the Rock unfortunately Steve came up a little short but that’s because he spent all day fighting aliens from another planet a good show here that demonstrates how popular the WWF had become during this time period raw is z took place the night after over the ede 99 wrestlers got together to pay tribute to Owen Hart who passed away at the pay-per-view and it’s one of those episodes of raw that’s really tough to sit through wrestlers were given the option to step into the ring for matches and they were also given the option to pay tribute to on by saying a few words backstage so he ends up with an event that tries to celebrate the King of Hearts but it ends up being extremely emotional this is a show I recently covered for the Rel Liv in the war series and watching it back today is just as tough as it was back then many also believe that show shouldn’t have taken place and it was merely damage control from Vince McMahon in the WWF but either way it’s a very sobering episode of Monday Night Raw historic and still talked about to this day the March 26th 2001 episode of Raw was a special samal cast of the wwf’s flagship show and the final episode of WCW Monday night row Vince McMahon purchased WCW and this allowed WWF promos and segments to take place on on Nitro among regular WCW matches on Raw fans also got to see a live feed from Panama City Beach when Shan McMahon appeared on nro and all this made for one of the most remarkable and noteworthy nights in the history of pro wrestling that also marked the end of the N legendary Monday night Wars the idea of seeing Vince McMahon on TNT at one point in time was absolutely ridiculous the fact that it actually happened is still something WCW fans struggled to wrap their heads around was this purchase really a good thing did it really help pro wrestling in the long run I’ll let you be the judge of that with all this Talent not at his disposal McMahon decided to create his own competition by dividing his wrestlers into two separate rosters one roster would wrestle exclusively for the raw brand the other would wrestle for the smackdown brand mcmah himself was the smackdown general manager while Ric Flair was looking after raw and so on this episode of Raw the general managers took turns at selecting wrestlers for their respective Brands the original brand split ended in 2011 and in 2016 The rosters were split once again at the time of recording this video the WWE’s divided into three rosters Raw SmackDown and NXT and there’s no sign of the current brand extension ending anytime soon the raw that features the first ever draft is a good show though it was very exciting to see who would end up where and it was fascinating seeing how all this would play out Raw was a pretty novel concept where much stipulations would be decided by the Spin of a wheel in storyline this was Eric Bishop’s idea the RO GM wanted to give fans something new and exciting when raw came to Las Vegas on October 7th 2002 and I think the whole idea behind raw roulet was pretty good even if it was all predetermined at least we got to see some pretty interesting matchups matches included Dow versus Triple H in a blindfold match and Booker T versus big Sho in a steel cage [Music] [Music] the first raw roulette was well received and so it returned on November 24th 2003 this time we got a cage match featuring Victoria and L Randy Orton competed in a Legend killer match against Sergeant Slaughter and Booker T took a beating from Mark Henry in a Salt Lake City street fight yeah this episode of Raw roulette was held in Salt Lake City and not Las Vegas the 2004 draft episode of Raw was quite different from the previous draft raw GM Eric bishof and SmackDown GM Paul hymon stood on either side of the raw stage and they drew six random names that would either join the red brand or the blue brand after the drafted taken place and after raw went off the air the GMS had the opportunity to trade anyone on their rosters but these trades had to be made before midnight although this did get extended due to Paul hymon resigning one of the bigger random picks that took place on this night was Triple H moving to SmackDown he and Eddie Guerrero M evented this episode of Raw but the game was quickly traded back to the red brand for the first time ever WWE Raw came from Japan on the 7th of February 2005 and the company put on a good show here in the Land of the Rising Sun it’s pretty cool seeing Japanese fans enjoy American pro wrestling the fans show the respect they’re well known for while also kind of embracing WWE’s presentation Style by acting a little more anim ated than what they normally would and it all makes for a very interesting episode of Raw that does come highly recommended fans in Tokyo got to see a Chris benois versus Chris Jericho match a Shawn Michaels versus Ric Flair match and in the main event Triple H defended his world title against Edge the star of the show though was Tajiri the Japanese buz saww got a great Ovation when he and William Regal defeated L resistance for the Tag Team Championships WWE Raw returned into the USA Network on October 3rd 2005 after airing on Spike TV the show was treated like a pretty big deal it even got released on DVD and the WWE put on quite the episode of Raw here by having things such as a piper pit segment an Iron Man match between HBK and Kurt Angle in a Main Event WWE Championship Match where John Cena defended the belt against Eric Bishoff Triple H and Ric Flair teamed up to beat Caro and Chris Masters but after the final bail Triple H attacked his old friend and the beat down was quite brutal this officially marked the end of the evolution stable after their dominant run that lasted more than 2 years also included was an exceptional ladder match between Edge and Matt Hardy Rob Conway took the claw from Kevin von Eric and fans also got to see special appearances from Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin as expected Vince McMahon took a stone cold stunner what wasn’t expected was Stephanie taking a stunner too another tough episode of Raw that was dedicated to a wrestler who passed away way too soon both raw and Smackdown hosted tribute shows to Eddie Guerrero who fans were once again given the opportunity to see wrestlers talk about their fallen brother while also saying unique matches that were put together to pay tribute to Eddie Shawn Michaels versus Rey Mysterio turned out to be an excellent match as did Kurt Angle versus Shelton Benjamin some of Eddie’s biggest WWE moments were also played throughout the night along with some of his more humorous and memorable promos and the show got headlined with a special Raw versus Smackdown match featuring John Cena and Randy Orton the matches the two place on this night are definitely worth watching though the interviews recorded by WWE Superstars are a little more hard-hitting Tribute to the Troops began in 2003 and for two years the shows aired as Smackdown specials in 2005 however the 9th of December tribute show aired as a raw special and a lot more matches got featured than the previous editions there was uh no ho ho hoes board match where anything go ho hoes yeah that was the official billing of the match Jonathan Coachman stepped into the ring with Nature Boy Ric Flair and he ended up topping out in about 2 minutes and the show was headlined with a Triple H versus Shawn Michaels boot camp match that HBK won the match itself’s actually pretty good even though most fans wouldn’t look up these shows when seeking out decent matchups tribute to the troop still runs to this very day with the last Edition being the smackdown special though other troop shows have been given their own night away from the Red Brand and the blue brand a very fascinating episode of Raw took place at the Old State Arena one night after WrestleMania 22 and in the same venue is WrestleMania 22 this is something that really couldn’t happen in modern times seeing as WrestleMania events always get held in huge stadiums and saying that though the WWF got record numbers for an episode of Raw in the Toronto Skydome as we learned earlier on so Never Say Never I guess the Umaga character debuted on this episode of Raw making an impact by attacking Nature Boy Ric Flair Vince man began his angle with God himself while setting up a match for the upcoming backlash pay-per-view and a two-on-one match was set up for the main event featuring Ed and Triple H teaming up to take on John Cena but Triple H decided to attack his partner and in doing so he was able to pin the WWE Champion as far as raw after WrestleMania goes it was nothing special but using the Wrestlemania venue once again for raw sure was interesting the raw family reunion held on October 9th 2006 in Columbia South Carolina was the first raw special to involve rosters from all three active WWE Brands Raw SmackDown and ECW wrestlers from different brands took part in a variety of matchups including ecw’s RVD versus smackdown’s King Booker we also had a Raw versus Smackdown main event when John Cena wrestled The Undertaker and in between these matches we had the general managers given off in the backstage area about which brand was Superior and all that stuff something else that happened on this night was the coming together of one r R Superstar named Edge and one Legend killer named Randy Orton these two would form the partnership known as rided R KO and they proved to be quite a formidable tag team unfortunately the Cena versus Undertaker Match didn’t have a clear winner thanks to interference from ecw’s world champion Big Show and smackdown’s Champion King Booker but the fans were sent home happy when King Booker took an attitude adjustment from John Cena well most fans were sent home happy this all set up a match at Cyber Sunday where the three Champions would face each other and triple threat match and in the end it was King Booker who proved to be champion of champions the Christmas episode of Raw in 2006 was another Tribute to the Troops event this time coming from Iraq whereas the previous Edition came from Afghanistan same deal here really the format Remains the Same more or less only we obviously have a variety of different matches including John Cena versus Edge CM Punk versus Shelton Benjamin Umaga versus Jeff Hardy and The Undertaker versus Johnny Nitro not lot to say here really the whole Tribute to the Troops idea came from JBL apparently and as time went on the events would be held in typical Arenas instead of military bases in 2007 the format of the WWE draft was changed up once again this time the selections were determined by nine matches a wrestler would fight for their brand to earn a random draft pick and the show was headlined with a batttle royal where the winner would receive two draft picks for their respective br brand this was only half the story though as more picks happened on wwe.com immediately following raw so if you were really interested and who got moved to which show you need to stay up for an additional 4 hours after raw had gone off the air on the TV portion of the draft raw got King Booker Bobby Lashley Snitsky and Mr Kennedy ECW got Chris benois and the Boogeyman and SmackDown got the great Ki Tory Wilson Chris Masters and Nature Boy Ric Flair this night was also uh it was also Vince McMahon Appreciation Night [ __ ] me and this also served as Brad Hart’s return to Raw kind of the Hitman recorded a few words for Mr McMahon where he basically called his old boss an [ __ ] no one had anything nice to say to Vince actually so he walked out of the arena and he blew his ass up when getting in his limo the WWE got word that Nancy Daniel and Chris benoir died on Monday the 25th of June 2007 this was when WWE was notified completely unaware of the circumstances surrounding the tragedy the WWE decided that raw should get replaced with a Chris benoir tribute show while pan fans were given refunds the arena remained empty for this broadcast highlights taken from the Chris Beno hard KNX DVD were played on Raw wrestlers gave tributes completely unaware of what happened and Chris ended up getting celebrated by the company on this very episode of Raw when more information became available Vince mcmah appeared on ECW to announced that beno’s name will never be mentioned on WWE programming again and the company would basically continue on as if Chris benois never existed this Memorial show is not available on WWE Network or peacock which is absolutely 100% understandable the WWE celebrated rw’s 15th anniversary by putting on a few special matches and bringing back stars of the past this is something they would do quite often from this point on the raw 15th anniversary Battle Royale was something to behold though Matt Bourne returned to players d character Steve [ __ ] Blackman made a comeback the reapo man got involved Pak gas showed up for God’s sake gangrell gilberg Scotty to hottie flash Funk it was a Nostalgia filled Battle Royal for sure and even though IRS won the match he ended up selling out the Ted dboi and he threw himself over the top rope after getting a big payday the show ended with Vince McMahon taking the mandible Claw from mankind a choke slam from The Undertaker and a stone cold stunner from the Texas rattlesnake himself and more little surprises were sprinkled out throughout the show making it one of the better episodes of RA from this era we end this video with another tribute to the troop show this time from Baghdad at Camp Victory taking place on Christmas Eve 2007 this time Triple H and Shawn Michaels were on the same te as they took on Umaga and Mr Kennedy in the main event Santa paid the troops another visit and he also gave Mr McMahon an attitude adjustment Randy Orton wrestled Chris Jericho and Caro took on Jeff Hardy there you go the first 30 raw specials that aired from 1993 to 2007 there are loads more special episodes of Raw to look at including one night King of the Ring tournaments Slammy Awards old school raw Superstar appreciation nights birthday celebrations so if you enjoyed this video please subscribe and you’ll get notified when the next upload goes Live on YouTube I’ll be covering the next 30 or so specials very very soon so I hope to see you again for part two thank you for watching and please take care what they you you’re under control and now do what they told you now you’re under control and now you do what they told you now you’re under control and now you do what they told you now you’re under control and now you do what they told you now you’re under control and now you do what they told you you’re under control and now you do what they told you now you’re under control now you do what they told you those who died are Justified for wearing a bag they chosen white you’re Justified those that died but wearing the badge and you’re chosen white those who died are Justified but we’re in the bad and your chosen white you’re Justified FR it died but we’re in the bad and you’re chosen white come [Music] on