LOS ANGELES _ If you add it up, there have been more than 1,860 hours of the live professional wrestling series "WWE Monday Night Raw" since the USA Network and WWE joined forces 25 years ago. That's slightly under six times more than the 315 hours of original programming during the 29-year run of "The Simpsons." It's almost double the hours of "Saturday Night Live" during its 43 seasons.
Before you get upset talking about the professional wrestling program in comparison to scripted programming, WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon describes the program in such terms when talking about the upcoming anniversary episode scheduled for Monday on the cable channel.
"In essence, it's a mini movie every single Monday night. And when you think about the stories that we're able to tell, WWE is really no different than any television show that you've heard about," McMahon says. "It's protagonist versus antagonist, with conflict resolution. The only difference is that our conflicts are settled inside a 20-by-20-foot square ring with some of the greatest live action that you can see on television or any form of entertainment."
Over the past 25 years, heroes and villains (often changing roles along the way) such as The Rock, John Cena, Triple H, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels have been entertaining millions of viewers. "WWE Monday Night Raw" consistently ranks as one of the top shows in cable and helped make USA the most watched cable entertainment network for 12 years in a row.
The "WWE Monday Night Raw"'s 25th anniversary telecast will take place from two New York venues _ the Barclays Center and Manhattan Center, the site of the first episode of "Raw." Some of the biggest names from "Monday Night Raw" and "SmackDown LIVE" will take part in the celebration.
McMahon credits her father, Vince McMahon, chairman and CEO of the company, with having the vision to create programming that not only survived for 25 years, but has grown massively in popularity.
She says her father has always said "it's important to have your finger on the pulse of the marketplace. And when you think about what's changed and evolved, well, WWE, one thing that will never change is that our fans are our secret sauce. And you picture 'Monday Night Raw.' It's an arena full of people. They're cheering. They're booing. They're chanting. They're holding their signs. They're throwing their hands to their face in shock and awe if we're doing our jobs right."
The passion for professional wrestling has been cultivated outside those arenas through feedback from focus groups and monitoring social media. John Cena, one of the biggest stars in professional wrestling, is the most active American athlete in the United States when it comes to social media, and he's sixth among athletes in the world.
Paul "Triple H" Levesque suggests the influence of "Raw" goes beyond the sports world. He points to the way politicians will make an entrance with entrance music playing as if they were about to step into the ring at Madison Square Garden.
He adds, "It has changed the way we see live event television. It has changed the way the NFL is shot. The NBA is shot. The way they do their talent packages. The rollout of their performers onto a stage. If you go to an NBA game and you see them come out with pyro and music and end zone celebrations and all of it, it all stems from 'Monday Night Raw.'"
Generally, "Raw" has not changed much since that first live match a quarter of a decade ago. The main focus is always been wrestling matches between two or multiple opponents preceded by plenty of smack talk. One of the biggest changes has been in regards to the women, who have become as big in the wrestling game as the men.
Mahon told the women there was going to be the first ever all women's Royal Rumble match.
"The reason why this is so significant is because there's been a tremendous movement, what we call the 'women's evolution,' that's happened in WWE where, even as late as 2015, our women were seen as secondary, tertiary-type characters," Mahon says. "At Wrestlemania, which is like our Super Bowl, in front of over 101,000 people live in attendance and millions watching on the WWE Network and on pay-per-view around the world, we had a WWE Hall of Famer Lita come out and announce the rebranding of the divas division to the women's division, unveil a new championship belt and say that our women were now going to be called 'superstars,' the same as the men.
"Since that time, our women have been regularly main eventing television and pay-per-views. And just recently, in December, (they) competed for the first time ever in the Middle East. For the first time ever, our women had a match in Abu Dhabi, competed for the WWE women's championship, and a chant broke out in the arena in the Middle East that said, 'This is hope. This is hope.' And there were little girls with tears in their eyes in the front row."
And now, both the male and female stars of the WWE will have the chance to mark the special anniversary of "Raw." Shawn Michaels has already started getting nostalgic about his role in making "Raw" such a hit.
"Even though this is the silly WWE wrestling business or whatever it is you want to call it, there are real lives, real people and real relationships. When everything is said and done, when all of this is over with, that's what we are going to have, and I'm so thankful to be able to have that with this company that I've been with since I was 23 years old," Michaels says. "And that is absolutely remarkable in a line of work that everybody said wasn't going to make it way back then.
"Here we are all these years later not doing too awful shabby."
