25 WWE Monday Night Raw Facts YOU (Probably) DIDN’T KNOW!

3. Vince had some unique ideas for how Raw should look

Credit: WWE.com

Years after his ill-received run as Raw color commentator, comedian Rob Bartlett summed up his inability to fit in, saying, “Part of the problem is you can’t make fun of something that doesn’t take itself too seriously to begin with.” And he’s right – mocking a gimmick like Repo Man would technically be a redundancy.

But Vince, he apparently yearned for Raw to have a glossier feel. When it was decided to hold the show in New York’s Manhattan Center, with its ballroom setting, McMahon allegedly suggested setting up tables at ringside, serving elegant dinners to the patrons as a means of making the show into high-class dinner theater. A dinner theater where The Berzerker could war with Max Moon, but a dinner theater regardless. Thankfully, this idea remained in the hangar.

4. How much were wrestlers paid to work Raw early on?

Credit: WWE.com

Ordinarily in WWE, the wrestlers’ pay is percentage of “the house”, whatever was made in revenue for a given show, and they were paid accordingly to their spot on the card. That’s why in the 1980s, mega-draw Hulk Hogan was capable of buying Denmark and giving it to Brutus Beefcake for Christmas.

The money was considerably less-glamorous for Monday Night Raw in its infancy. Prichard noted that wrestlers made a static “TV wage” that wasn’t dependent on the gate, and in those earlier days of Raw, wrestlers made $25 for working. This was understandably a source of annoyance for wrestlers that were plucked from the touring loop to work one match, and weren’t even handsomely compensated for that part of the grind.

5. The first post-WrestleMania Raw wasn’t anything special

Credit: Uproxx

It’s hard to imagine the post-WrestleMania episode of Monday Night Raw without thinking of 17,000-strong representing the collective core fan at its most vociferous and defiant. Everything WWE presents is wrong, and those people that spent thousands on ‘Mania travel packages that put money in WWE’s pockets are going to let them know it.

But that wasn’t the case in the mid-nineties. Post-Mania Raws used to be low-key affairs, and in 1993, the night-after telecast consisted of matches taped two weeks earlier. The commentary track from Vince McMahon and Randy Savage was recorded that day, and referenced the events of the pay-per-view, but the matches had already been in the can for 14 days. At least the crowd for that show chanted mean things at babyface Virgil, so it was kind of like a modern post-Mania Raw.

6 years ago by Wrestle Talk

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