Ask 411 Wrestling: Why Do Part-Timers Get to Headline WrestleMania?

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Ask 411 Wrestling! I am not your regular host, Mathew Sforcina, but I am instead Ryan Byers, frequent fill-in for this little column over the course of the past ten-plus years.

One thing that will be different about this fill-in than all of my prior fill-ins is that I have not been watching that much professional wrestling over the course of the past year or so, so hopefully nobody asks anything about the current product, or I’ll have to start making things up.

If you DO have a question that I can answer while Mat is out, feel free to send it to [email protected]. After today, I’ll also be here for the March 8 and March 15 editions of the column.

Putting that all behind us, let’s head to the . . . BANANER~!

Zeldas!

Check out Mat’s Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture!

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Feedback Loop

No feedback this week, because I didn’t write the last column. However, when I inevitably get something wrong, feel free to e-mail me or mention it in the comments and you just might see me acknowledge the mistake in seven days. I’m certainly more likely to acknowledge my shortcomings than certain elements within the United States government.

The Trivia Crown

There was no question last week, but here’s a question to try to answer for next week.

Who am I? I am a veteran of the independent wrestling scene with over ten years of experience, the majority of which has been spent with the same promotion. Even though I’m an indy guy, I’ve had exposure on daytime television, a popular web series, and even a video game. I have a cult following online, which was mostly built up in a manner that virtually no other wrestlers have utilized, even though it would be very easy for most of them to do so. Throughout the course of my career, I have been part of a stable of wrestlers that really knows how to party and a tag team that shares its name with an infamous ECW wrestler. Speaking of names, my ring name has a definite pop culture inspiration, though, if you don’t know where it came from, you might think that it has an affiliation with James Bond, Street Fighter, or even philosophy. Who am I?

Answer down in the comments, and the winner will receive a fabulous prize mystery prize!

(Disclaimer: The fabulous mystery prize consists of nothing more than my admiration, a completely intangible concept with no monetary value whatsoever.)

Now, on to the reason that you’re all here.

Getting Down To All The Business

Let’s kick things off with question from one of my favorite early 1990s rock bands, Nelson, which is timely as we are on the road to Wrestlemania:

In this week’s Ask 411, Mat commented on how Brock/Goldberg is all but assured to be for the Universal title. This got me thinking. Why have the last several Wrestlemania main events included a part-timer? With all of the new stars created over the last several years (Bryan, Reigns, Rollins, Ambrose, KO, AJ) as well as established vets like Orton and Cena still around, why keep putting part timers in the main event of the biggest show of the year? Is it just that they provide the most intrigue? Do numbers evidence increased buys? I’m not complaining, as I’ve enjoyed them (save for last year), but just curious why this is the case? Coincidence? I don’t think so as in the first 27 Wrestlemanias, only twice did the main include someone who wasn’t a full time performer (Mr. T at WM 1, and Lawrence Taylor at WM 11). Since then, it’s occurred in each WM main event (Rock WM 28 and 29, Batista WM 30, Brock WM 31, HHH WM 32, and presumably Brock and Goldberg WM 33).

So what do you think? Curious to hear your take.

First, let’s provide a little bit of historical perspective. You’ve compared the first twenty-seven Wrestlemanias to the last five years. However, if you look at the first twelve or so Manias, almost EVERYBODY in the main events would have looked like a “part timer” if you compare the number of times that an average fan saw them wrestling to the number of times that an average fan currently sees a Brock Lesnar or a Bill Goldberg wrestling. Though Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and the Ultimate Warrior were running hot and heavy on the live event circuit in the early days of Wrestlemania, the way television was structured meant that most viewers only saw them in a handful of matches a year, and some of those were meaningless squashes. If you lived outside of New York and were lucky, you could see maybe six Hulk Hogan matches a year, and none of them were going to be more important than the match he had on Wrestlemania. That model of scarcity made those wrestlers into special attractions.

If you look at it that way, asking why a Dolph Ziggler or a Kevin Owes doesn’t headline Wrestlemania XXXIII is a bit like asking why Tito Santana didn’t headline Wrestlemania III. If a guy who you got to see wrestling on a fairly regular basis was in the main event of the biggest show of the year, what would there be to make the event feel like something special, like something you need to go out of your way to see? Keep in mind that the purpose of building a Wrestlemania card is to attract all of the eyeballs possible, not just the core group of fans who will watch every single show presented no matter the circumstances.

Of course, beginning in the 1990s, weekly wrestling television became far more important to the overall product, and the “all hands on deck” mentality of the Monday Night War meant that most of your top stars were wrestling in the main event of Raw each week in addition to headlining pay per views. Fortunately for the WWF, it just so happened that, during that period, they had two individuals on their payroll who were not just wrestling stars in the traditional sense but were transcendent, mainstream stars, namely the Rock and Steve Austin. Normally you only get a star of these men’s calibre once in a generation, and the WWF had the great luck to have them in the same place at the same time. When you’re dealing with that level of internal star power, you almost didn’t need to rely on anybody from the outside to build Wrestlemania so long as you had at least one of these two positioned in a strong match.

After the full-time in-ring careers of Austin and the Rock came to a close, the level of star power available to the WWF plummeted. Don’t get me wrong, men like the Undertaker, Triple H, and John Cena are huge names within the wrestling world, but none of them have ever had the crossover appeal that the biggest stars of the Attitude Era managed to muster. (Yes, Cena has had some mainstream accomplishments like hosting the Today show in recent years, but that has been as he has waned in importance to the WWE landscape.)

Because the WWF/WWE didn’t have wrestlers who fans only saw compete a limited number of times per year and because they didn’t have true mega-stars of their own, they had to start relying on outside attractions to add some extra panache to Wrestlemania. Though Nelson has indicated that these outsiders didn’t come in to the show’s “main event,” presumably referring to the last match on the card, until Mania XXVIII, those outsiders were an important part of promoting the show much earlier, with examples including Donald Trump at Wrestlemania XXIII, Floyd Mayweather at Wrestlemania XXIV, and Mickey Rourke at Wrestlemania XXV. The focus on outsiders continued with Bret Hart’s return being perhaps the most heavily promoted part of Wrestlemania XXVI and the Rock’s “hosting” being more important to Wrestlemania XXVII than anything actually on the card. Though the full-time roster members closed out the evening, the outsiders were more important to hyping the event in the weeks leading up to it. Far more people who only watched only one WWE pay per view in 2007 bought Wrestlemania to see Donald Trump than they did to see Shawn Michaels, even though Shawn Michaels was the “main eventer” by Nelson’s definition.

So, the “outsider” focused Wrestlemania actually began quite some time before the Wrestlemania XXVIII cited to by Nelson, even if the outsider’s match didn’t go on last, and the rise of the outsider wasn’t truly a new phenomenon . . . it was simply a return to the form of the original Wrestlemanias, at which seeing a WWF main eventer wrestle was a truly special event for ninety percent of the promotion’s fans. The period that we’re in now isn’t the unusual one in terms of Wrestlemania booking. It just seems that way because the true unusual period – the one in the late 1990s and early 2000s in which wrestlers were such big stars in their own right that outsiders weren’t needed – is such a recent memory.

Raza has a trio of questions, which he referred to as a “flurry.” I assume that a flurry of question is akin to a pride of lions or a murder of crows.

First, I was amazed to see Sting vs. Seth Rollins at Night of the Champions 2015. What was idea behind the match? Sting hadn’t wrestled since WM. Was he slated to win the WWE Championship, or was WWE afraid that he may walk out after they did not offer him any matches since WM31? The match did not made any sense, particularly when Sting lost.

According to sources such as the Wrestling Observer and PW Insider, Sting was originally being considered for a spot on the 2015 Summerslam card, with the most heavily reported match being Sting teaming with former Shield members Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns against Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper, and Erick Rowan of the Wyatt Family. This would make sense, as WWE has been promoting Summerslam as an almost Wrestlemania-level event in recent years, with its biggest name part-time performers typically having some role on the show.

The best explanation that I could find as to why the Sting/Shield/Wyatt match didn’t happen was that the plan had to be reconsidered when Rowan was injured. Replacing Rowan was an option that was on the table, but, ultimately, the decision was made to scrap the match altogether because the Brock Lesnar vs. Undertaker angle that was headlining Summerslam was felt to be more effective than originally expected, meaning that Sting was no longer seen as being necessary to help sell the show. Instead, because he only had the ability (and/or desire) to work a limited number of matches, he was held off to another time when he could be considered more of a special attraction . . . and that time was Night of Champions, which of course wound up being the final bout of his career.

Second, in my opinion, one of the reasons for WCW’s downfall was holding their PPVs in lower seating capacity arenas. Cards of WCW PPVs were terrifically booked in mid-90’s, but the PPV arenas were just 2-3,000 capacity on average as compared to large arenas where Nitros were held. Was this a problem?

I don’t know that this was actually a problem, because, even if pay per view events were booked in smaller venues (which I haven’t double checked), the main source of revenue off of a pay per view isn’t the live attendance, it’s the sale through cable and other means. So, as long as the pay per views were being purchased by home viewers in large numbers – which they were during the company’s hottest run – things were going to be OK.

Ultimately, though WCW’s business practices certainly didn’t help, it was the sharp decline in the quality of their product that put the promotion in a position that allowed it to be killed off.

Third, related to the above question, in the mid-90s WCW had a great trademark entrance setup at Nitro with the large silver WCW signs on either side of the entrance ramp, which later got changed somewhere around mid-1999. I believe at that point Nitro started to sink. So why did they change the setup in 1999?

The first Nitro to feature the new look that you’re referring to aired on April 5, 1999, and it consisted of a set that took the shape of the bizarre new logo the promotion unveiled around the same time. I recall one of my friends around the time referring to it as “Wrestling Meets Star Trek,” and they really weren’t too far off.

Why did they make the change? This is the sort of thing that corporate America does all the time. Every so often, when the powers that be feel that a particular brand has grown stale, they’ll make changes to shake things up, and cosmetic changes like a new set and a new logo are among the easiest and least risky changes to make. Unfortunately, cosmetic alterations alone usually do not address problems with the quality of a product, and that certainly wasn’t the case with 1999 WCW.

Fourth, do you think anyone of the following will ever be WWE World Heavyweight Champion since there is only one world title available: Ryback, AJ Styles, Dolph Ziggler, Sheamus, Dean Ambrose, Randy Orton, Kevin Owens, Neville, Rusev, or Brock Lesnar. I personally doubt anyone will ever be, as the championship scenario will revolve around Reigns, Rollins, Bray Wyatt, Cena, Ceasro, Triple H, and Finn Balor.

Well, obviously this question has been sitting around in Mat’s mailbag for a long time, because not only have a lot of those men held a world championship in WWE in recent months and years, but also we’ve now once again got two co-equal championships in the promotion, with the WWE Universal Championship having been created.

Of the men listed, AJ Styles, Dean Ambrose, and Kevin Owens have all held major championships since the question was asked, while Ryback obviously left the company without achieving that goal. Of the remaining names, Neville seems highly unlikely to ever take home one of the big belts, as he has always been portrayed as a lower/mid-carder, and, now that the promotion has a cruiserweight division, he has other things to do with his time. Lesnar could easily win the championship again at any time depending on where storylines go, while Sheamus, Orton, and Rusev are all essentially former championship-level competitors who have been busy with other things because there is only so much room at the top. Any of them could be reinserted into a championship role if injuries or other circumstances cause an opening at the top, and Orton will have a good shot at just that come Wrestlemania. That leaves poor Dolph Ziggler, who I honestly do not believe will ever have a substantial championship reign. He’s been with the promotion for thirteen years at this point, and it is incredibly rare that WWE pulls the trigger on somebody as a top guy after booking him the midcard for that long.

APinOZ has a question about Bob Backlund, who I never would have guessed would have a role on WWF television in 2017:

Back when there were a realistic Big Three promotions in the US (AWA, NWA, WWF), there were, infrequently, matches between the reigning champions of these promotions. However, most of them seem to have involved Bob Backlund. Was Backlund seen as a guy the NWA and AWA could trust more and were happy to do business with him, or is it just coincidence because these matches happened during his long first title reign?

For those not familiar, AP is referencing a series of matches that occurred during Backlund’s initial WWWF Title reign, which lasted from February 20, 1978 through December 26, 1983 (with a small interruption involving Antonio Inoki that, as of this writing, is not officially recognized by WWE, though it has been at various points). These include:

1) NWA Champion Harley Race vs. Backlund on February 23, 1978 in Jacksonville, Florida

2) AWA Champion Nick Bockwinkel vs. Backlund on March 25, 1979 in Toronto, Ontario

3) A Backlund/Race rematch on October 29, 1978 in Orlando, Florida

4) A third Backlund/Race match on September 22, 1980 in New York City

5) Backlund and Race hooking it up for a fourth time on November 7, 1980 in Race’s backyard of St. Louis, Missouri

6) NWA Champion Ric Flair facing off against Backlund on July 4, 1982 in Atlanta, Georgia

As an aside, Backlund also wrestled Flair on July 15, 1979 in Toronto, though the Nature Boy was only United States Champion at the time and not the holder of the NWA’s ten pounds of gold.

Why did this seem to happen so often during Backlund’s WWWF Title reign as opposed to the reigns of other champions? It appears to mostly be a coincidence, with the promotions just being more open to doing this sort of business with one another during the time that Backlund was holding the title. It may also have something to do with the fact that, prior to Backlund making it big in the WWWF, he came up through Missouri and had a series of matches with Harley Race, making the two competitors very familiar with each other.

Long-time questioner Night Wolf the Wise must have left the window open, because things are getting a little drafty . . .

This question is meant for you to think a little bit. With the draft occurring in July, there was talk of bring up multiple stars from NXT to be on both Raw and Smackdown. If you were going to be in charge of the Draft and New Era:

A. Who do you draft to Raw?
B. Who do you draft to Smackdown?
C. Who are your Main Eventers?
D. Your Mid Carders?

As you can probably tell, this another, older question that I’m helping Mat to clean up. If I were answering this one prior to the draft or very shortly after it, I would probably do an expansive answer that breaks down every employee of the company and where I would slot them, but that seems a little silly now that the event has taken place over six months ago. So, rather than go whole hog at this question, let me instead point out five things that I would have done differently if I were behind the draft’s booking.

1. Why Did We Break up the Club, Exactly?: Maybe it’s just me, but I see no reason, particularly where storylines have gone since the draft, to have separated AJ Styles, Karl Anderson, and Luke Gallows. Styles doesn’t seem any better off as a result of having lost his running buddies, while Gallows and Anderson have seemed fairly directionless before receiving a token tag team title reign.

2. Splitting Off the Wrong Wyatt: Braun Strowman was separated from his Wyatt Family brethren in order to receive a fairly substantial singles push and feud with Roman Reigns. Maybe it’s just me, but I would have preferred to see what Luke Harper could have done if he were spun off from the stable and given a singles run on a different brand.

3. How About a Total Surprise?: Though there were some draft picks made out of NXT, I think that an interesting story could have been told if one of the two major brands drafted a wrestler who heretofore was completely unknown to either WWE brand, a hot new free agent signing who could have immediately gotten a big push off of being an outside player so important that either Raw or Smackdown was able to take a chance on him as opposed to a more established name.

Imbalance in the Women’s Division: Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like Smackdown got the short end of the stick when the two divisions were divvying up women, particularly considering those who have debuted since the draft. I would have balanced things a bit more, which probably would have involved separating Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks and allowing one of them to each head up a brand’s women’s division . . . that, or we could have made the women’s division totally exclusive to one brand, similar to the cruiserweight division.

5. Leave Mick Foley & Daniel Bryan at Home: I feel like I’ve said this a million times in recent years, but I am sick of wrestling storylines being driven primarily by non-wrestling authority figures while the wrestlers themselves take a backseat in terms of agency. I would have left Foley and Bryan completely out of the draft scenario and kept Shane and Stephanie McMahon as the sole authority figures, if you have to have authority figures at all. I suspect this wasn’t done because Shane doesn’t appear to be working a full-time schedule, but having a figurehead who only pops up from time-to-time would have been GREAT in my opinion and perhaps something that could have been used to distinguish the two brands from each other.

SJD0083 wants to talk about alternate history:

An alternate wrestling history question about WCW. WCW’s success can be attributed to the combination of Ted Turner’s money and a strong territory (Jim Crockett Promotions). But what if Ted Turner was somewhere other than Atlanta when he was building his cable empire? Back then TBS was WTBS and broadcast Atlanta tastes nationally, as opposed to the generic cable network it is now. I would guess there isn’t one answer, as if he started a network in the northeast, Midwest, Texas or west coast all are different scenarios. So what if Ted Turner owned a network in a different territory?

Honestly, I don’t know if there would be much of a difference in the world of professional wrestling caused by Turner starting up in a different area . . . UNLESS Turner somehow managed to launch his media empire from New York or Los Angeles, the two pop culture capitals of the United States. One of the huge advantages that Vince McMahon always had in the territorial wrestling war was that he was operating out of NYC, and, by virtue of that fact, he was always going to more eyes on him from outside of the insular wrestling community. If Turner had broken in to that city or its west coast equivalent (or maybe even third-place media market Chicago), he could have taken that advantage away from McMahon or at least neutralized the advantage, which might have given him more of a fighting shot. However, one of the reasons that Turner was able to establish such a strong foothold while operating out of Atlanta was the lack of competition from other companies, so one wonders if he would have been able to build the empire that he did out of NY or LA.

There ain’t no party like a Manu Bumb party, ‘cuz a Manu Bumb party don’t stop . . . seriously . . . this guy has been asking questions forever.

Speaking of things that don’t stop, because I sometimes get obsessive and anal about addressing historical questions like this, this answer goes on FOREVER and gets a little tedious. I’m warning you now in case you want to check out before the end.

Anyway, here’s Manu’s question:

Am I the only one that thought it was incredibly coincidental that Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins had a match with a decisive winner on the final Raw before they were supposed to face off at Night of Champions, and between Raw and NoC, Roman had to undergo emergency surgery, only to return right as WM season was beginning?

How many other times has WWE given away one of the top matches for an upcoming PPV on the Raw before said PPV, without a wonky finish?

Having conducted a fair amount of research, this is actually a pretty rare phenomenon. That makes sense if you think about it, because, if you think that a match has the potential to make money on pay per view (or through increased network subscriptions under the current economic model), there would be no valid reason to give it away for free on television. Even if it couldn’t happen on the PPV for some logistic reason, it would make more sense to just bump it back to some later paid show as opposed to giving it away on television.

I looked back across the entire history of WWE Raw, and, honestly, I couldn’t find a scenario exactly like the one Manu asked about. Probably the closest analogue involved the main event of 2009’s pay per view “The Bash” (formerly known as the Great American Bash), in which Randy Orton retained the WWE Championship against Triple H in a Three Stages of Hell match that included a regular singles match, a falls count anywhere match, and, finally, a stretcher match. In a very odd move, HHH and the Legend Killer also had a singles championship match against each other on the Raw before the PPV, though there was not a clean finish, as the bout was contested under Last Man Standing rules and neither wrestler could answer the referee’s ten count after taking a big bump.

Another “close but no cigar” situation revolves around the 2001 edition of Vengeance, which was, in some ways, an historic show, because it saw a four man mini-tournament to unify the WWF Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship, which was the renamed WCW Championship. In the tournament matches, WWF Champion Steve Austin pinned Kurt Angle, while Chris Jericho won the WCW Championship off of the Rock before Jericho went on to defeat Austin in the tournament finals to unify the titles. Jericho and Austin did have a singles match on the preceding episode of Raw, with the Rattlesnake pinning Y2J. Technically, viewers didn’t know that Jericho vs. Austin was going to be the last match on the PPV when it took place on Monday night, but they knew that there was a strong possibility that it could be. As an aside, Kurt Angle and the Rock also wrestled on the Raw before Vengeance, though it was in a tag team match in which Angle teamed with Vince McMahon and Rocky teamed with Trish Stratus.

Another scenario that is close to what Manu described but not quite there occurred heading in to Wrestlemania XXX. The main event of that card was technically not known before the show began, as a Daniel Bryan vs. HHH match early in the card would determine whether Bryan would be added to the WWE Championship main event of Randy Orton vs. Dave Batista. Had Bryan lost, the main event of Raw would also have been the main event of the pay per view, as Orton and Batista had a non-title singles match against each other on the March 31, 2014 edition of Monday Night Raw.

One of the most unique storylines involving PPV opponents facing each other on free TV unfolded on the Raw before 1999’s Summerslam. Throughout the course of Raw, the Summerslam main event was technically still up in the air, as Chyna had won the number one contendership to the WWF Championship but put it on the line against Triple H. Chyna won the match with assistance from Mankind, who then challenged her to put the title shot on the line against him. Mankind defeated Chyna, but, after that, HHH challenged Mankind for the number one contender’s slot. Those two wrestled to a no contest, meaning the Summerslam title match turned into Steve Austin putting the WWF Title on the line against both Foley and Trips, who had just finished wrestling on Raw, in a three-way. It’s worth noting that some of the build to Summerslam 1999 was immortalized in the segments of MTV’s True Life: I’m a Pro Wrestler special that followed Chyna’s career.

Also, it is fairly common for two out of the three wrestlers participating in a PPV triple threat match to have a one-on-one singles encounter on the Raw immediately preceding the big show. Examples of this over the years include:

1) Bill Goldberg and Kane facing each other in a lumberjack match on Raw before they would join Triple H in a World Heavyweight Title triple threat match at Armageddon 2003.

2) Shawn Michaels and John Cena having a Raw singles match the night before Taboo Tuesday 2005. Michaels, Cena, and Kurt Angle wrestled each other in a WWE Championship Triple Threat on that pay per view, though that match was not necessarily guaranteed, as Michaels had to be voted into the match by WWE fans, who also could have selected the Big Show or Kane. (But, let’s be real, who aside from trolls would vote to see Show or Kane wrestle when they could have HBK?)

3) John Cena and the Big Show wrestling on Raw the Monday before they would have a World Heavyweight Title triple threat match also involving Edge at Wrestlemania XXV.

4) CM Punk defeating Alberto Del Rio on the go-home Raw for Hell in a Cell 2011, the main event of which was Punk vs. Del Rio vs. John Cena.

5) John Cena pinning WWE Champion CM Punk on the last Raw before the 2012 Survivor Series, at which Punk defended his title against Cena and the Ryback in a triple threat. At the pay per view, Punk managed to reverse his fortunes and emerge victorious.

6) The Raw before Battleground 2016 featuring a WWE Title match between Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins when the PPV main event was a triple threat match for the championship between Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns.

Another common tactic is putting wrestlers who are facing each other in the main event of a pay per view in a tag match on the Raw before the PPV, which has happened many, many times, including:

1) 1995’s Summerslam presented us with one of the earliest examples of this booking, as Men on a Mission had an impromptu tag team match against Diesel and the British Bulldog just six days before Big Daddy Cool was to defend the WWF Championship against MOM’s Mabel. Apparently by the time Raw was taped, the WWF had already decided that the Mabel/Diesel feud was going to bomb, because they used this match to set up Diesel’s next opponent, with the Bulldog turning on him.

2) Fully Loaded 1998 was a very rare pay per view to be main evented by a WWF Tag Team Title match, as the Undertaker and Steve Austin defeated Kane and Mankind to take home the championships. Three-quarters of the match actually took place on the Raw beforehand, as Kane and Mankind faced Austin in a handicap match.

3) At the first ever Judgment Day pay per view in 1998, Kane and the Undertaker wrestled to a no contest in a main event that was refereed by Steve Austin. Those three men were in the ring together on Raw the show before, as Austin teamed with regular rival the Rock in a match against the Brothers of Destruction that ended in a no contest.

4) WWF Breakdown was an unusual one-off pay per view held in 1998, headlined by Steve Austin defending the WWF Title in a triple threat match against Kane and the Undertaker in a match that saw a double pinfall on Stone Cold and the championship being vacated. The three men were also in action against each other on the prior Raw, with the Brothers of Destruction teaming up to face Steve Austin and a special mystery partner that he recruited for the show . . . Billy Gunn. I remember that one being a huge letdown at the time, and it was one of many failed singles pushes for Gunn.

5) WWF Rock Bottom was another one-off pay per view from 1998, headlined by a Buried Alive match between Steve Austin and the Undertaker with a semi-main event of the Rock defending the WWF Championship against Mankind. On the preceding Raw, those four men faced each other in a tag team match, with Austin and Mankind opposing the Rock and the Undertaker.

6) In one of the more bizarre preview matches to a pay per view, the Raw before No Mercy 1999 featured Triple H and Chyna wrestling Steve Austin and Jim Ross six days before HHH put his WWF Championship on the line against Stone Cold. As a side note, interfering in the match was Jeff Jarrett, who was getting ready to wrestle Chyna for the Intercontinental Championship in what was and will probably forever be Jarrett’s last WWF match ever.

7) Heading in to No Mercy 2000, the Rock and the Hardy Boys wrestled the infamous Team ECK (Kurt Angle, Edge, & Christian) before Rock defended the WWF Championship against Angle at the pay per view and before the Hardys defended the Tag Team Championships against Edge and Christian’s good friends Los Conquistadors.

8) At Backlash 2000, the WWF Championship and the Intercontinental Championship were on the line, with Triple H defending the big belt against the Rock and Chris Benoit putting the IC strap on the line against Chris Jericho. On the Raw beforehand, the two matches were merged in to one, with HHH and Benoit facing the Rock and Jericho, with the champions emerging victorious.

9) The main event of Fully Loaded in 2000 was the Rock defending the WWF Championship against Chris Benoit in a singles match. On the preceding Raw, Benoit got a victory over Rocky, as the Rabid Wolverine, Edge, and Christian were successful in a six man over Rock and The APA.

10) No Way Out 2000 saw the retirement of Mick Foley (for the first time, anyway), as he had what was supposed to have been his final match against Triple H inside the confines of the Hell in a Cell. In the main event of Raw the same week, there was a preview of the match in which HHH, The Big Show, and X-Pac faced Cactus Jack, The Rock, and Kane. Of course, the pay per view also included Big Show vs. Rock and Kane vs. X-Pac matches.

11) Another Raw preview tag match took place prior to No Way Out 2001, when the show’s Rock vs. Kurt Angle main event was foreshadowed by Rock teaming with Steve Austin to face Angle and Chris Benoit.

12) In the odd period that was the post-Wrestlemania, pre-Invasion phase of 2001, the annual King of the Ring pay per view was headlined by a heel Steve Austin defending the WWF Championship against faces Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit in a triple threat match. The three men also met on the Raw before KOTR, with Austin teaming with Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley to take on Benoit, Jericho, and Little Spike Dudley in a match that also dovetailed nicely with an angle in which Spike stood up to Austin when he had some unkind comments for LSD’s girlfriend Molly Holly.

13) The Raw before Summerslam 2001 again presented us with the classic scenario in which opponents in PPV singles matches faced each other in tag team action. The main event of that show was Booker T vs. The Rock for the WCW Championship, and they teamed up with Rhyno and Chris Jericho, respectively.

14) The main event of Unforgiven 2001 saw Kurt Angle defeat Steve Austin for the WWF Championship in a move no doubt designed to get a bit of a cheap feel good moment based on the guy in the red, white, and blue singlet winning a huge match just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The two men also saw action against each other on Raw, with Angle and Chris Jericho facing Austin and Rob Van Dam in tag action. Unforgiven also featured Jericho and RVD wrestling each other for Van Dam’s Hardcore Championship.

15) Kurt Angle, Rob Van Dam, and Steve Austin squared off for the WWF Championship in a triple threat match that headlined No Mercy 2001, and, on the Raw directly beforehand, Angle and the Undertaker teamed up to wrestle Austin and Booker T. Rob Van Dam, being the odd man out of the tag match, instead wrestled the Rock.

16) Though Triple H and Chris Jericho’s championship match went on last at Wrestlemania XVIII in 2002, everybody knows that the true main attraction of the evening was the Rock squaring off with Hulk Hogan. The two wrestlers also locked horns six days earlier on Raw as part of a handicap match in which the Rock and Steve Austin faced Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. Believe it or not, the match ended with the Hulkster pinning the Brahma Bull with the atomic leg drop, essentially clean in the middle of the ring. In addition to being a preview of one of the most iconic matches in Wrestlemania history, it’s also the answer to a trivia question in that it is the only time that Hulk Hogan and Steve Austin faced off against each other in the ring.

17) The Raw before Wrestlemania XXIV included a weird hodgepodge main event. The WWE Championship match set for Mania was Triple H vs. Randy Orton vs. John Cena, and all three of those men were involved in an eight man tag in which Cena, HHH, Ric Flair, and Shawn Michaels beat out Orton, Umaga, John Bradshaw Layfield, and the Big Show. In addition to the WWE Title competitors being in this bout, Flair and Michaels were also opponents at the weekend’s pay per view.

18) Thought he last match to go on during Summerslam 2004 was Randy Orton vs. Chris Benoit for the World Heavyweight Championship, the show was more heavily promoted around, oddly enough, Triple H vs. Eugene Dinsmore during the height of Eugene’s weird six months or so of mega-popularity. Those two matches were merged into one on the Raw before the big show, with HHH and Orton wrestling Eugene and Benoit.

19) Taboo Tuesday 2004 was unique for a variety of reasons, including its interactive nature and the fact that it was an attempt by WWE to re-start its practice of holding PPVs on days other than Sunday after years and years of Sunday being established as the norm. It was also headlined by a non-title match, featuring Ric Flair going up against Randy Orton in a steel cage match, notable for the Nature Boy getting into some hot water for pre-match comments about how he’d spent his career “making virgins bleed.” The night before the show on Raw, Flair teamed with Evolution stablemate Big Dave Batista to defeat Orton and Chris Jericho.

20) The 2004 Vengeance pay per view was headlined by Chris Benoit defending his World Heavyweight Title against former champion Triple H. They locked horns on Raw as well, with HHH, Ric Flair, and Eugene teaming up to defeat Benoit and Edge in a handicap match.

21) In 2005, Triple H and Dave Batista were involved in what was an excellently-booked feud, and it continued through to a Hell in a Cell match at that year’s Vengeance pay per view, where Batista retained the World Heavyweight Title over HHH. Naturally, they also had a pre-PPV Raw encounter, in which a Batista vs. Kurt Angle match was stopped due to interference from HHH and Ric Flair and turned into a tag match with Trips and Angle facing Batista and Shawn Michaels.

22) Unforgiven 2005 featured John Cena putting the WWE Championship on the line against Kurt Angle. Angle got a chance to soften up his opponent on the Raw beforehand, as general manager Eric Bischoff booked a handicap match pitting Cena against Angle and his partner Travis Tomko.

23) In 2006, John Cena vs. Edge for the WWE Championship was the main singles match on the Royal Rumble card. On the Raw beforehand, they were not in direct singles competition but did face each other in a tag match in which each man got to select a mystery partner. Cena selected Ric Flair, while Edge recruited Chris Masters. The babyfaces were victorious, with Cena making Masters tap to an STFU.

24) John Cena and Edge continued their longstanding rivalry in a TLC match at Unforgiven 2006. Before they wrestled in that match, they were in a six man tag on Raw, with Cena’s partners being Jeff Hardy and Carlito, while Edge’s were Randy Orton and Johnny Nitro. I don’t seem to recall Cena explaining why he was comfortable teaming with a guy who once hired a thug to stab him in a nightclub.

25) By 2007, the One Night Stand pay per view had dropped any trappings of being an ECW affiliated event and was instead just the precursor to the current Extreme Rules show. If you need proof of that statement, the ’07 show was headlined by the Great Khali, specifically a match between Khali and John Cena for the WWE Championship. The two also met on the Raw before the show, with Khali, Shane McMahon, and Umaga wrestling Cena and Bobby Lashley in a handicap match. That encounter also helped to set up a Lashley vs. Vince McMahon match that was on the pay per view.

26) No Mercy 2008 was headlined by a ladder match between Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels for the World Heavyweight Championship as part of their critically acclaimed feud from that period. However, they also wrestled on the Raw before, with Triple H and Michaels teaming up as D-Generation X to defeat Jericho and Lance Cade. Hey, remember the two weeks when Cade was Jericho’s protégé?

27) In one of the more odd duplications of a main event, the Big Show and Chris Jericho were set to defend their WWE Unified Tag Team Championship against Shawn Michaels and Triple H at the 2009 TLC pay per view show. For reasons that I cannot even begin to comprehend, the Raw beforehand featured the DX babyfaces taking on the heel Jericho in a handicap match, which, of course, was interrupted and brought to an end by the Big Show.

28) Monday Night Raw’s first-ever taping in Mexico occurred the Monday before the 2011 instalment of the Vengeance pay per view. John Cena and Alberto Del Rio tangled in that PPV main event, and their pre-PPV tag match in Mexico City was an odd one, with Cena and Jim Ross facing Del Rio and Michael Cole.

29) CM Punk put his WWE Championship on the line against the Miz and Alberto Del Rio at TLC 2011. On the Raw beforehand, all three of those competitors were in the ring along with a fourth man, as Miz and Del Rio teamed up to defeat Punk and his partner Randy Orton.

30) Hell in a Cell 2014 was headlined by former partners and long-time rivals Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose going at it within the confines of the Cell. They faced each other in a different gimmick match on the prior Raw, namely a “handicap street fight” in which Ambrose teamed with John Cena to face off against Rollins and his partners Kane and Randy Orton.

31) Despite being named after the Elimination Chamber match, the 2015 Elimination Chamber pay per view was actually headlined by a singles match between Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. The two former Shield members were also in the ring together on the Raw beforehand, when they faced off in a tag match with Ambrose selecting Roman Reigns as his partner and Rollins choosing Kane.

Well, that was . . . lengthy. Thanks to anybody who made it all the way through that, and I’ll see you back here in seven days!