Would Raw work back in the 80s?

[pepentorresHHH]

We just crossed Raw 1000 2 weeks ago and it all began back in 93, when the business was changing from the rock and wrestling era to a more athletic and "realistic" era carried my shawn michaels and bre hart, like I said, the business was changing, the WWE was expanding and people kept receiving more and more wrestling, to the point when they would receive a weekly show EVERY week but would the same concept work back in the 80s?

Take into consideration the following facts:
-wrestling was different, the way superstars and matches happened were extremely different.... Think hogan, andre, backlund, snuka, piper,dibiase, matches all over the card
-gimmicks were larger than life! Hogan was the all american superhero who defeated evil in the end, andre was undefeated for more than a decade, the macho man was running wild, randy savage was going strong....
- the territories still existed, Vince was taking their top talent but they were still out there...
-wrestling was in a boom period, so it was hugely popular but it wasn't presented that often, so whenever you saw them was special...
-ppvs were unheard of until vince ran with Wrestlemania, so episodes would be stand alone episodes with no ultimate pay off

Ill give my opinion later,.... Tell me what you think!

 

[TheLoneCharles]

If Raw was around back in the 80s, I see much of the same problems there are now.

Hulk Hogan would be squashing everyone because Hogan=ratings back then. The WWF Title would have been hot potatoed to many of the guys that never had the title back then. Honky Tonk Man would not have the longest IC Title reign. Eventually in the quest for ratings, the lower card would be forgotten about until everyone left in 1993 and 1994. It would mirror the current era, which is the rebuild after the last boom period.

80s Raw would have been great though, I would have been too young to stay up and watch it though.

 

[AndThat'sTheBottomLine]

We just crossed Raw 1000 2 weeks ago and it all began back in 93, when the business was changing from the rock and wrestling era to a more athletic and "realistic" era carried my shawn michaels and bre hart, like I said, the business was changing, the WWE was expanding and people kept receiving more and more wrestling, to the point when they would receive a weekly show EVERY week but would the same concept work back in the 80s?

Take into consideration the following facts:
-wrestling was different, the way superstars and matches happened were extremely different.... Think hogan, andre, backlund, snuka, piper,dibiase, matches all over the card
-gimmicks were larger than life! Hogan was the all american superhero who defeated evil in the end, andre was undefeated for more than a decade, the macho man was running wild, randy savage was going strong....
- the territories still existed, Vince was taking their top talent but they were still out there...
-wrestling was in a boom period, so it was hugely popular but it wasn't presented that often, so whenever you saw them was special...
-ppvs were unheard of until vince ran with Wrestlemania, so episodes would be stand alone episodes with no ultimate pay off

Ill give my opinion later,.... Tell me what you think!

Macho Man and Randy Savage were the same guy. Macho Man Randy Savage. Get it?


Anyway I think it would've been fine although the product would be suffering today. After Hogan, Savage, etc.... split the product would've suffered until Bret and the rest of the mid card got built up enough to be main eventers. It wouldn't have taken too long I don't think. Then Shawn, Nash, Hall and others would come and we'd be where we are today. Not much would've changed.

 

[EastCoastFan]

Keep in mind that Vince rewrote the book on promoting pro wrestling when he took over the WWF from his father in the 80's. Wrestling was VERY regional back then and Vince was the first guy to begin promoting across the country instead of just in one area. There was no such thing as pay-per-views when WrestleMania 1 took place - it was aired in closed-circuit broadcasts around the country.

Wrestling was becoming popular, but I don't think it was popular enough to run in prime-time EVERY WEEK in the 80's. Saturday Night's Main Event did good numbers for its time slot and I'm sure WCW's Clash Of The Champions specials did well, but they weren't quite ready for weekly prime time TV.

 

[HBsam31]

I agree with the poster above in that we weren't quite ready for that yet however we did have the Saturday morning shows. What was a lot different back then is how often you got to see the top stars. When you turned on say All American Wrestling you didn't get to see Hulk hogan wrestle. He was saved for the Wrestlemanias and the Sat night Main Event. I loved Sat Night Main event. I remember trying my hardest to stay up through them as a kid. The biggest star you would see in the morning shows was maybe Jake Roberts or Rick Rude and it was always against a jobber. Wrestling was just so different then that I couldn't see a Raw type show being as popular as it is now.

 

[sdelfin]

That all depends on what you expect Raw would have been like in the 80s. A weekly Raw in the 80s probably would have been a hybrid of WWF Superstars and Challenge, the syndicated weekly shows, and Saturday Night's Main Event, the semi-regular NBC specials that were big events. Superstars and Challenge featured mostly enhancement matches, and quite often would have a decent featured match. That's not much different from what Monday Night Raw actually was when it began and for a couple of years after that. And to reiterate what was already said, promoters knew not to put all their big stars on TV all the time.

 

[FlairFan2003]

First of all Raw technically did exist in the 80s, WWE ran a two hour show on USA every Monday night, showcasing decent matches, definately above "jobber level" quality, along with a steady announcing crew that showed highlights of major match endings, storyline arcs, etc along with wrestler promos. They only thing they didnt do was spotlight a lot of World Title matches, although when Hogan was champ he only wrestled 4-5 times per month most of the time.

The only thing that changed when it became Raw was better main event matches at the show's conclusion and a major saving in production costs by WWE by doing the whole show from one location (previously the Monday Night Matches were taped at different venues on the house show circuit). Back in the 80s with only a couple PPV events per year feuds were drawn longer and fewer main event level matches shown on TV, first to pump up interest in seeing those wrestlers clash on the house show circuit, 2nd to pump up interest in seeing these guys on the major PPVs. The early editions of Raw really didnt change that dynamic much, just a slight uptick in match quality.

Obviously the changes in programming that we see today with better quality TV matches, faster feud progressions, etc were all started by Bischoff and WCW, first when they started expanding their PPV calendar and then with the advent of Nitro that offered true superstar main events, major title changes, etc. WWE & Raw had to adapt to keep up and eventually they did.

If the question is could a show like today's Raw exist back in the 80s and prosper I would say Yes. Basically what you would have seen was "The Nitro Effect" taking place earlier, feuds would have to move faster, major shows would likely increase with interest leading to an expansion of PPV events (actually in WCW it was the inverse, they expanded the PPV calendar, the faster paced version of Nitro was a result), title changes more frequent. The wrestling audience would have eaten up just like they did from 96-00. We ust would have gotten to where we are today a lot faster.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

FlairFan nailed it. Competition from Nitro really kicked RAW into high gear, and is an overlooked benefit (or drawback depending on your point of view).

If you go back and look at the kinds of matches they featured in the early years, you'll see it wasn't much better than Tuesday Night Titans back in the 80s: http://prowrestling.wikia.com/wiki/1993_List_of_Monday_Night_RAW_results

The first "big time" match was Mr. Perfect vs. Ric Flair in a loser leaves WWF match. But there was a whole lot of jobber matches up until about 1995/1996.