Monday Night RAW – February 7th, 2000
(Chosen by Dave Green)
So you’ve got the WWE Network now, right? But with the sheer volume of content available where exactly do you start? Thankfully your trusted advisors here at TWM are on hand to steer you in the right direction and suggest a few key “starting points” if you will…
If this episode of the WWE’s flagship show is actually available to watch at the time of writing then you could do a lot worse than making it your first port of call. So much has been documented about the Attitude Era and the weekly shots fired in the Monday Night Wars that it’s appropriate to suggest revisiting a must-watch episode of Raw from during that time which features a key point that many feel signalled the beginning of the end for WCW. “Attitude” was well established in the WWF by this point but strictly speaking it was around this time that the volume was turned down a notch on some of the more outrageous features of the WWF landscape. Vince Russo had jumped to WCW just 3 months prior so it’s easy to see that a slightly more watered-down product was starting to appear. In my opinion though, what the WWF lost in sheer noise it compensated for with a more balanced roster from top-to-bottom and invariably a better in-ring product. Longtime figureheads Stone Cold and The Undertaker had both decided to take some time out which gave fresher faces the chance to step up. Chris Jericho had joined the company a few months before, Kurt Angle was just starting to make waves, Edge & Christian vs The Hardys from October’s No Mercy PPV was voted the best match of 1999 and ECW stalwarts The Dudley Boys and Taz(z) had just been poached from the renegade Philly outfit.
Right smack-bang in the middle of this red hot streak for the WWF then, with the real head-to-head battles in the Monday Night War over (because WCW was deep in the toilet by this point) messrs Guerrero, Malenko, Benoit & Saturn jumped to the WWF. Making their initial appearance on the previous week’s Raw is War as “guests” of Mick Foley, the quartet watched from the crowd before getting involved physically with the DX-affiliated New Age Outlaws. Fast-forward to the subsequent episode of Smackdown and the foursome were each thrown into matches by Triple H against members of his DX crew to try and win contracts before ultimately coming up short. Cue the start of this memorable episode of Raw then, where the former WCW guys assemble in the ring to thank the WWF fans for their support and also thank the man who gave them this opportunity… But when Mick Foley puts in an appearance he certainly gets more than just a handshake and a pat on the back from these newly christened “Radicalz” who instead align themselves with the in-charge Triple H. A fantastic, somewhat forgotten episode of Raw held in front of a scorching-hot, sold out Reunion Arena crowd in Dallas, TX, every segment is relevant and builds tension to an awesome main event; an epic 10-man tag match which is still to this day the greatest match in Raw history in my opinion. Definitely one to watch.