WWE Raw could be considered the frontier program when it comes to the world of professional wrestling. Over the years, it also became synonymous with Monday night television. Plus, WWE is proud to call its flagship show the longest-running weekly episodic television show in history. Some of the fans can remember that the show has been airing for their entire lives.
However, things weren’t this much smooth for the WWE in the mid-1990s as they have just started to build a reputation as a global brand. With competition coming from WCW, the home of WWE Raw, USA Network nearly canceled the popular weekly wrestling TV series. But they eventually backed down from trimming it down.
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On a recent episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer recalled a story where USA Network executive decided to get WWE Raw completely down from their programming list. However, the show managed to get back some last-minute ratings which saved the day for the program. Another show suffered the consequence, as a result.
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WWE Raw became the longest-reigning episodic TV show in history
“At that point, it’s just like way too popular to be canceled. But, the decision was made to cancel it, and they did end up canceling Tuesday Night Fights which never came back,” Meltzer stated about WWE Raw’s condition around the 90s.
“A lot of people thought that losing Tuesday Night Fights really hurt boxing as far as it was a good place to see boxers on the way up and showcase them and everything like that that was on a big station, not like an HBO or something that had less viewership. So yeah, that happened.”
The veteran journalist also noted how WWE Raw viewership drops during football season. Owing to this, WWE and USA also considered moving the show to Tuesday nights to avoid competition from the NFL. But ultimately, it stayed on the prime slot on Monday while NXT was inserted into Tuesday nights.
USA Network isn’t seemingly interested in breaking the tradition of Monday night wrestling while there are plenty of fans who just can’t think of Monday nights without the presence of WWE Raw. Rating problems during football season continue as no such move has been made to prevent the same. But the fact that the move was at least considered, gives us chill.