WWE’s Monday Night Raw turns 25 on Monday night, so congratulations to Raw on being finally able to rent a car without additional fees!
Raw has had so many memorable moments over its two and a half decades on the air. WWE compiled their own list, “decided in part” by the fans, of the top 25 moments in Raw history, which contains some of the best the show has had to offer. Surprising wins, devastating losses, debuts, returns, betrayals and team-ups, in addition to quality professional wrestling, have made the show worth watching.
But no program, no matter how good, can run for 25 years without some stinkers along the way (Looking at you, Simpsons.) So I embarked on an arduous, often painful quest to find the very worst moments in Raw history. Watching the clips of the contenders may have taken years off my life.
From the Attitude Era needing to be edgy at all times, to the ’00s stagnation from lack of competition, Monday Night Raw has featured a lot of garbage. This list contains what I believe to be the 10 worst moments in Raw history.
10. Hornswoggle Is Revealed To Be The Anonymous Raw General Manager
The Anonymous Raw General Manager controlled Raw for about a year in 2010-2011 before being replaced by Vice President of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis. To unfortunately jog your memory about how the anonymous GM operated, there would be an email alert, and Michael Cole would read out the GM’s decree from a laptop. The ARGM storyline ended without its identity being revealed, and Raw went on.
Then, pre-Raw 1000, previous GMs returned for one night stands of control over the show. On July 9, 2012, a full year after we last saw the Anonymous Raw General Manager, it was back in our lives. And it is finally revealed (and predicted by some random guy at 1:14 in the above video) to be Hornswoggle, who then comes out to do comedy dwarf things.
This might be the most fatalistic reveal in Raw history. Writer Kevin Eck said that sometimes the Raw writers room acts just like you and your friends watching wrestling and said, to paraphrase, “Lol, what if it this thing was also Hornswoggle? That would be terrible.” And then they just did it, because who cares about anything?
This moment was originally supposed to include the reveal of Hornswoggle’s true identity as an old-timey mobster character, but, uh, they didn’t have time to do that, so it was just regular Hornswoggle. And it was so dumb in the most depressing way.
9. “Diesel” and “Razor Ramon”
The formation of the nWo was a brilliant creative move by WCW. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash showed up as invading outsiders and the epitome of cool heels and totally revitalized Nitro for a while. Raw responded with one of its most baffling creative decisions: to recast the Diesel and Razor Ramon characters with new performers like so much Sin Cara.
On Sept. 30, 1996, Fake Diesel (future demon/possible mayor Glenn Jacobs) and Fake Razor Ramon (Rick Bognar) had their first match. Fake Razor Ramon debuted at the end of the previous week’s show, so the crowd had already moved from confusion to hatred of the whole situation by this point. They justifiably felt insulted, wondering, does the WWF think they’re so stupid that they’ll think these are the same people? They look like slightly melted versions of the originals, they can’t do the moves as well, and “Razor Ramon” can’t even do the accent.
This was so clearly before Raw gots its shit together in the late ’90s. They say you don’t know what you have until its gone, but with Hall and Nash, they apparently didn’t know what they had while they had them OR after they were gone.
8. Roman Reigns Tells Us A Story
The Roman Reigns Debacle (stretching from approximately his return from injury 2015 until the WrestleMania 33 build 2017, but we can argue about this later) is another example of WWE creative totally misunderstanding the appeal of certain performers, as well as what the fans will enjoy watching. When it came time for the super over Shield to break up, Vince especially wanted to make Roman Reigns the new top WWE guy. And why not? The dude was popular, a good wrestler, related to the Rock, and so shoot handsome it makes me lightheaded sometimes.
Unlike past top WWE guys, he was better at silent physicality than trash talk and had more of a “Greek god but Samoan” than everyman vibe. But creative played to the performer’s strengths, built a different type of character, and Roman Reigns became one of the most universally beloved babyfaces of the decades. Oh no, wait -–
When I put this promo on my list of worst moment contenders, I doubted it would make the top ten. Then I watched it, and it is so much worse than I remembered. The moment starts with heel Big Show declaring giant supremacy, calling the audience losers, and then devolving into nonsense for two minutes. Roman’s music hits, and the crowd pops like crazy because this was before a bunch of stuff like this happened.
Reigns’ promo gets off to a decent start, but then he decides to tell Big Show a story. Specifically, a self-insert version of Jack and the Beanstalk. The phrase “magic beans” kills the crowd. By the end of the promo, the crow is booing, because this is one of the worst things they’ve ever seen in their lives.
Roman himself summarized it pretty well on Talk Is Jericho when he said, “The toughest part is the verbiage, or if something is written for you and you just can’t connect to it, you know what I mean? And you see it. It is what is it, and you see it. But you have a job.”
Maybe in a Monday Night Wars world with bigger stakes for getting people over, WWE creative would have figured out to write Roman material that connects with him and that the crowd connected with. But they just kept doing the same thing and it kept not working and most of it wasn’t as physically painful as this moment, but it was a bummer.
7. 3 Minute Warning Attacks HLA
Eric Bischoff shoot-contributed some pretty cool things when he was hired by WWE in 2002, like Raw Roulette and the Elimination Chamber. However, his general manager run also contributed one of the most embarrassing segments in WWE history, “HLA.” At the beginning of the September 9, 2002, episode of Raw Eric Bischoff promised HLA: “Hot Lesbian Action,” later in the show. Jerry Lawler, in classic Lawler fashion, wouldn’t shut up about it while actual wrestling things were happening on the wrestling show.
Then, at long last, Bischoff invites two nice-looking ladies, the solely-named lesbians, to get in the ring. These ostensibly homosexual women are initially very interested in Eric Bischoff, for some reason! (Maybe the haircut?) Bischoff points them at each other and directs them in some softcore porn nonsense. But once the women are stripped down to their underwear, the voice of Dario Cueto speaks in Bischoff’s ear, and he points out that people watch wrestling shows to see violence! So 3 Minute Warning, a duo of two giant Samoan dudes (Rosey and future-Umaga Jamal) comes out to attack the lesbians.
The lesbians cannot defend themselves – and are wearing underwear that makes them look nude from the back. There’s hair-pulling. It’s gross, homophobic, misogynistic, and clearly playing to a perceived desire of the audience to see nearly-naked women get brutalized. Sure, Bischoff is a heel, but there’s no way anyone expects the crowd to boo this. (And they don’t!)
The one upside of this moment is when Rosey throws one of the lesbians to Jamal, who smoothly transitions into a Samoan Drop. It’s an incredibly rad spot that I’d love to see in a different context (the inevitable Strowman/Reigns Can They Coexist? tag team match, maybe?). Overall though, this moment is some of the worst lowest-common-denominator garbage the WWE has ever done.
6. Mr. McMahon Stages His Own Death After Making A Whole Episode Of Raw About Him, But Then Terrible Real Life Things Happen And It Doesn’t Even Pay Off Right
After losing the ECW title, the now sad and durag-less Mr. McMahon, stages an Appreciation Night for himself on June 11, 2007. There are vignettes from ex-employees and celebrity guests including Jesse Ventura, Snoop Dogg, and Donald Trump (who now-famously got super worked by this episode ), but surprise! They roast Vince instead of appreciating him! Some even foreshadow his demise!
At the end of the episode, Vince slowly, dejectedly walks out of the arena to his limo. He gets into it, and it limo explodes.
This set up a whodunit angle similar to when Rikishi did something for somebody. (I don’t remember the specifics because watching all these terrible Raw clips killed half my brain cells.) WWE played it like Mr. McMahon had actually died, with WWE personalities paying tribute to him like they had for actual wrestlers who had actually died, Owen Hart and Eddie Guerrero.
McMahon was supposed to eventually come back to reveal he had faked his own death with some other characters involved, but then Chris Benoit murdered his family and killed himself. After that, acting like Mr. McMahon’s death was real turned from “in bad taste” to “oh no stop everything right now oh god.” With a death to be mourned and then distanced from and never ever mentioned by the company again, Mr. McMahon made a kayfabe-breaking return to television. The fake death storyline was unceremoniously wrapped up months later, and transitioned to the classic bastard McMahon child angle, because everyone watches wrestling for the authority figures.
This moment makes the top ten not just for the dumb storyline, but for the connection to real life horrifying events. No matter what you think of how WWE continues to treat the Benoit tragedy and his legacy, I think we can agree that the aftermath was a dark time for wrestling and for WWE.
5. Kai En Tai Threatens Val Venis With Genital Mutilation
A lot of these moments don’t have clips on WWE’s official YouTube channel, but this one doesn’t even have a clip anywhere on YouTube besides a 20-second video of someone filming their TV with their phone. WWE sure does not want people to remember that time they made Breakfast At Tiffany’s look like, uhhhhh, Saving Face?
On Aug. 3, 1998, porn star Val Venis (haha, it rhymes with “penis!” The Attitude Era!) was all set to have a match with Brian Christopher. During Venis’ promo, Kai En Tai, a pro wrestling faction that had previously worked in Michinoku Pro and ECW, comes out with several huge salamis and a sword. You see, the previous week it was revealed that porn star Venis had slept with faction leader Yamaguchi-san’s wife! Yamaguchi-san was going to spank her in the ring, but Venis saved her. Obviously, the only way for Kai En Tai to recover from this dishonor is to castrate Venis. Yamaguchi-san chops the salami with a sword and yells, “I choppy-choppy your pee-pee!”
The next week, we are led to believe that Kai En Tai actually castrated Venis, but then Venis explains that Yamaguchi-san missed his dick. So is he in, like, micropenis fetish porn? Is that an okay thing to ask Val Venis about on Twitter? I’m so glad Nakamura and Itami are here now, and not 20 years ago.
4. Katie Vick
The Katie Vick storyline ran for most of Oct. 2002, and it got worse as it progressed. It started on Oct. 7, when Triple H revealed that he knew a secret about then-babyface Kane … that Kane had secretly murdered someone named Katie Vick in the past! What a shocking reveal about a literal demon.
The next week, Kane revealed that, yes, Katie Vick died in a car accident that happened when he was driving. But there’s more! Triple H claims that Kane was in love with Katie, and that the autopsy found his semen inside her. The next week, Triple H claims that he has a sex tape of Katie and Kane … but is she alive or dead in it??? Turns out, neither. The tape is of Triple H wearing a Kane mask, pantomiming sex with a dead body. So now this wrestling storyline involves necrophilia. Cool. After beating Triple H in a tag match later that night, Kane puts the Game in the trunk of his car and says, “Now I’m going to screw you.” So now this wrestling storyline involves implied rape, as well. Super cool.
After tons of complaints about the necrophilia angle, the Katie Vick storyline got as dumb as it had been dark. Triple H entered the ring on Oct. 28 and makes fun of people who were offended by his actions. Then he pulls out a dummy, because that’s a proven great way to improve the quality of your promo. He does a whole routine in which he has the dummy say in a high-pitched voice that “Kane had a burnt little weiner.” Hilarious.
Kane and his tag team partner the Hurricane then emerged, because they’ve decided to fight stupid edgy video with stupid edgy video. In Kane’s retort video, someone with a Triple H mask on is in the hospital getting a variety of large objects pulled out of his butt, while the “nurse” makes comments that first imply that Triple H was indeed raped last week, and then when it’s implied this is his kink, it’s time for kink-shaming to round everything out. For a punchline that was definitely worth all this, the nurse pulls Triple H’s own head out of his ass. Real Triple H goes into a rage and starts beating the dummy with a chair.
Shockingly, this quality angle didn’t pick up the next week. All that necrophilia/rape stuff had no payoff. Perfect.
3. “Donald” vs. “Rosie”
Back in 2007, when Donald Trump was a reality show host who got involved in celebrity feuds much less frequently than he does now, he got in one with Rosie O’Donnell. And because Vincent K. McMahon is a good friend, he decided to support his buddy by staging a “Donald Trump” vs. “Rosie O’Donnell” match on Monday Night Raw.
Given Trump’s documented fondness for GIFs where his name is photoshopped over something beating up something with his opponent’s name photoshopped over it, I’m sure he enjoyed this. But neither the live nor TV audience did.
Mr. McMahon welcomes “Rosie” “in all her lesbionic fury” to the ring, getting us off to a great start. “Rosie” stops to eat some of Chekhov’s cake from the announce table before the match, because she’s fat and because fat people, especially fat women, are disgusting and never stop eating, get it? The crowd is booing the very concept of the match at this point. Then it starts and is terrible as a match in itself, and the crowd keeps booing.
Trump does some dumb hair gags and Rosie does some dumb Hulk Hogan gags, because WWE is your local indie on Halloween. Trump wins after grabbing the cake, shouting “Come on, fattie!” and hitting Rosie in the face with it. Rosie cries in the ring, and Jim Ross declares, “Now that is a SportsCenter moment if I ever saw one.” And sure enough, this fight was featured on a SportsCenter segment called “Wrestling Can Be The Absolute Worst Sometimes, And Vince McMahon and Donald Trump Are Both Hateful And Immature.”
(Note: that may not have been the title of the SportsCenter segment in question.)
2. Cena vs. Cole
“Michael Cole is not an athlete; he’s not a competitor,” Corey Graves said those very words just last week on Raw. But on June 4, 2012, Michael Cole competed in a No DQ match against John Cena at the height of his Super Cena powers.
Long, poorly-written story short, John Cena had beef with heel commentator Michael Cole and heel authority figure John Laurinaitis. If Cena defeated Lord Tensai, who he had lost to the previous week, in a match, he could choose his opponent for a No DQ match later in the evening. Because 50/50 booking (and because Cena always gets the win back), Cena beat Tensai, and selected Cole for his opponent, after attempting to get Johnny Ace, who can’t compete because he is clearly in a wheelchair. Hustle, loyalty, respect! Be a star!
Cena proceeded to emasculate and humiliate Michael Cole for six incredibly uncomfortable minutes. He hit him, stomped on his nuts, forced him to apologize to everyone he’s been a dick to, stripped him down to his underwear, poured barbecue sauce on him, sprayed him with a fire extinguisher, and AAed him. What a hero! Never give up!
1. Trish Stratus Barks Like A Dog
This Raw moment from March 2001 is one of the show’s most infamously offensive. People occasionally defend it as a heel doing heel stuff, but that’s only part of the segment. Everything beyond the actual barking is WWE at its worst.
Before most of her achievements as an in-ring competitor, Trish was involved in an angle where she was having an affair with Vince McMahon. After she lost a match to Stephanie, Vince turned on her. He ordered her to the ring the following week and forced her to apologize, and not only apologize, but get on her knees and bark like a dog. The audience is disturbed. If this was the end of the segment, Trish would have crazy babyface heat and the popular Vince would have more legitimate heel heat. Mission accomplished.
But then Vince decides barking isn’t enough, and tells Trish, “If you’re really sorry, take your clothes off.” The crowd loses it. They cheer louder as each item of clothing is removed. Trish is clearly humiliated and on the verge of tears. Sure, Jim Ross calls Vince a villain, but the crowd is on Vince and heel commentator Paul Heyman’s side. Vince cuts a promo after Trish leaves, comparing the crowd to her, but it doesn’t work because everyone is still in a sexual frenzy.
The ultimate payoff for this is that Trish slaps Vince during his match with Shane at WrestleMania X-Seven, which is definitely on the same level as a being dehumanized and sexually humiliated. WWE and Vince McMahon knew their audience in 2001. They knew how to get big positive or negative reactions. They had to have known how this would play out, and that they could play it off as “It’s a bad guy doing bad guy things, why are you offended?”
To be honest, watching the clip doesn’t make me feel offended. It makes me disappointed, and mostly disappointed in wrestling fans. Being a part of a hot wrestling crowd is, in my opinion, one of the best collective experiences a person can have, and that energy here was used to get off on degrading a woman. The behavior of not just Vince, but the WWE and many of my fellow WWE fans makes this, to me, the worst moment in Raw history.
What’s your least favorite moment in Raw history? Let us know in the comments below.
