10 Most Important Episodes Of WWE Raw In History

4. January 4, 1999

Back in the day, not every episode of Raw was live, which their competitors WCW sought to exploit for their own gain. 

They used to occasionally give away WWE results on their own live show, Monday Nitro, in the hopes that their viewers would then have no reason to change the channel. 

The most infamous example of this happened on January 4, 1999. Upon learning that Mick Foley was going to win the WWE Title on the night, Tony Schiavone sarcastically remarked “That’s gonna put some butts in the seats”. And that’s exactly what it did. 

Fans were so invested in seeing the loveable underdog win the big one that they tuned into Raw just in time to see Mankind beat The Rock (thanks to a huge assist from Steve Austin) in one of the all-time great show closers.

Many of the fans never went back to WCW, which presented the infamous Fingerpoke of Doom between Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash on this very same night. Nitro would struggle to compete with Raw on a regular basis from this moment on, with many historians seeing this as the moment the tide in the Monday Night War turned.