WWE Raw, also known as Monday Night Raw or simply Raw, is an American professional wrestling television program produced by WWE. It airs live every Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on USA Network. The show features characters from the Raw brand, to which WWE employees are assigned to work and perform. The show debuted on January 11, 1993 and is considered to be one of two flagship shows, along with Friday Night SmackDown. In September 2000, Raw moved from the USA Network to TNN, which rebranded to Spike TV in August 2003. On October 3, 2005, Raw returned to the USA Network, where it remains to this day. The WWE Network has ceased operations in the United States as of April 5, 2021, with all content being moved to Peacock, which currently has most Raw episodes, excluding content that was censored or removed by Peacock's standards and practices department. Recent episodes are still available for on-demand viewing 30 days after the original air date.
King of the Ring was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and WWE Network event produced by WWE, a Connecticut-based professional wrestling promotion. The PPV event was held annually in June and was established in 1993 when the promotion was still called the World Wrestling Federation. It centered on the King of the Ring tournament, which had been held annually as a non-televised house show from 1985 to 1991, with the exception of 1990.
William Charles DeMott II is an American retired professional wrestler, road agent, and trainer. He is best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as Hugh Morrus and World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (WWF/E) under his real name. DeMott also performed as Crash the Terminator in both Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW) and Japan.
Ray Washington Traylor Jr. was an American professional wrestler best known for his appearances with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) under the ring name Big Boss Man, as well as for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as the Boss, the Man, the Guardian Angel, and Big Bubba Rogers. During his appearances with the WWF, Big Boss Man held the WWF World Tag Team Championship once and the WWF Hardcore Championship four times.
WWE No Mercy, also known as NXT No Mercy beginning in 2023, is a professional wrestling event produced by WWE, a professional wrestling promotion based in Connecticut. The first No Mercy was held on May 16, 1999, in Manchester, England, and was the only No Mercy event produced in the United Kingdom. A second No Mercy was then held in October that year in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Beginning with this second event, No Mercy became the annual October pay-per-view (PPV) until 2008. The event was then discontinued and replaced by Hell in a Cell in 2009. After eight years, No Mercy was reinstated in October 2016. However, No Mercy was again discontinued after the September 2017 event, as WWE reduced the amount of yearly PPVs held after they had ended the production of brand-exclusive PPVs following WrestleMania 34 in 2018. In addition to traditional PPV, the 2016 and 2017 were livestreamed on the WWE Network, and then just Peacock and the WWE Network beginning in 2023.
WWE Heat is an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and aired from August 2, 1998 to May 30, 2008. Originally produced under the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) banner, it aired on USA Network (1998–2000), MTV (2000–2003), and TNN/Spike TV (2003–2005) in the United States, CTV Sportsnet in Canada, and Channel 4, Sky1, and Sky Sports in the United Kingdom. From 2002, due to the WWE brand extension, Heat served as a supplementary show to the Raw brand, focusing more exclusively on its mid-card performers and matches, and was recorded before the week's television taping of Raw.
WWE Velocity is an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and ran from May 25, 2002 to June 11, 2006. It replaced two syndicated WWE shows, Jakked and Metal. Once a weekly Saturday night show on Spike TV and on Sky Sports 2 in the United Kingdom on Sunday mornings, Velocity became a webcast from 2005 to 2006. The newest episode would be uploaded to WWE.com on Saturdays and be available for the next week. Older webcast episodes were also archived. It served as a supplementary show to the SmackDown! brand, focusing more exclusively on its mid-card performers and matches, and was recorded before the week's television taping of SmackDown!. 8 episodes of Velocity are now available on Peacock in the United States and the WWE Network in international markets.
Sean Michael Coulthard, better known by his ring name Michael Cole, is an American professional wrestling commentator. He is currently signed to WWE, where he serves as the play-by-play commentator for the Raw brand, color commentator for the SmackDown brand, and as the Vice-president of Announcing since 2020.
Bruce Prichard is an American professional wrestling executive, booker, and producer and a former manager, commentator, and occasional professional wrestler. In addition to his corporate roles with WWE, Prichard has also appeared as an on-screen character under the ring name Brother Love. As Brother Love, Prichard was the original manager of The Undertaker, and hosted a talk show segment, The Brother Love Show.
WWF Shotgun Saturday Night is a professional wrestling television program that was produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). It aired from January 4, 1997 through August 21, 1999 as a syndicated broadcast. Shotgun Saturday Night was replaced by WWF Jakked in 1999.
WWF Superstars of Wrestling, also referred to as Maple Leaf Wrestling in Canada was an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by the World Wrestling Federation. It debuted on September 6, 1986, as the flagship program of the WWF's syndicated programming.
The brand extension, also referred to as the brand split, is the separation of the American professional wrestling promotion WWE's roster of wrestlers into distinct divisions, or "brands". The promotion's wrestlers are assigned to a brand via the annual WWE Draft and exclusively perform on that brand's weekly television show, with some exceptions. Throughout its history, WWE has utilized the brand extension twice. The first brand split occurred from 2002 to 2011, while the ongoing second began in 2016.
Professional wrestling in Australia makes up a small part of Australian culture. Unlike the North American or Japanese products which have large, globally renowned organisations such as WWE, AEW, New Japan Pro-Wrestling or Impact Wrestling with several hundred smaller promotions, Australia only has approximately 30 smaller independent circuit promotions which exist in all Australian states and territories. Tours from the North American product are regularly sold out in capital cities such as Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.
The American professional wrestling promotion WWE has maintained several men's and women's tag team championships since Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) seceded from the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in 1963 to become the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), which was later subjected to various name changes, including World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)—in April 2011, the company ceased using its full name and has since just been referred to as WWE. The first men's tag team title, the WWWF United States Tag Team Championship, preceded the company's creation, as it was established in 1958 for CWC as a version of the NWA United States Tag Team Championship, while the first women's tag team title, the WWF Women's Tag Team Championship, was established in 1983. Whenever the WWE brand extension has been implemented, separate tag team championships have been created or allocated for each brand.
The history of WWE Raw began as WWF's Monday Night Raw on January 11, 1993. Over the next two decades, Raw would become the promotion's flagship show, achieving numerous milestones along the way.
The history of WWE SmackDown, began with the shows debut on August 26, 1999, in Kansas City, Missouri. The show was originally broadcast on Thursday nights but moved to Friday on September 9, 2005, before returning to Thursdays on January 15, 2015. On July 19, 2016, it was moved to a live broadcast on Tuesday night. SmackDown! debuted in the United States on the UPN television network on April 29, 1999, but after the merger of UPN and the WB, SmackDown! began airing on The CW in September 2006. The show was moved to MyNetworkTV in October 2008, to Syfy on October 1, 2010 and to USA Network on January 7, 2016.
SmackDown is a brand of the American professional wrestling promotion WWE that was established on March 25, 2002. Brands are divisions of WWE's roster where wrestlers are assigned to perform on a weekly basis when a brand extension is in effect. Wrestlers assigned to SmackDown primarily appear on the brand's weekly television program, Friday Night SmackDown, also referred to simply as SmackDown. It is one of WWE's two main brands, along with Raw, collectively referred to as WWE's main roster. The brand extension was discontinued between August 2011 and July 2016.
ECW was a brand of the American professional wrestling promotion World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) that was established in May 2006 and discontinued in February 2010. Brands are divisions of WWE's roster where wrestlers are assigned to perform on a weekly basis when a brand extension is in effect. Wrestlers that were assigned to ECW primarily appeared on the brand's weekly television program, ECW. The brand was established as a relaunch of the former Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion, the assets of which WWE acquired in 2003.
The American professional wrestling promotion WWE has maintained several men's world championships since Capitol Wrestling Corporation seceded from the National Wrestling Alliance in 1963 to become the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), which was later subjected to various name changes, including World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)—in April 2011, the company ceased using its full name and has since just been referred to as WWE. The company's first world championship was the WWE Championship, which was established along with the promotion's creation in 1963 as the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship; it is still active today and is WWE's oldest active title. Whenever the WWE brand extension has been implemented, separate world championships have been created or allocated for each brand.
