Tonight’s Monday Night Raw will be the last one ever on USA Network as the show moves to Netflix starting from next week.
The show, which made its debut on January 11, 1993, has always aired on USA Network apart from a five-year period between 2000-2005 when it moved to TNN/Spike TV. It moved back to USA Network in 2005.
USA Network was the home of some incredible episodes of Raw, especially the most important period during the Attitude Era. It has catapulted USA Network to the top of the cable chart for many, many years and its loss from the line-up will certainly be felt since it has constantly been the most-watched series on the cable network.
But WWE is not ending its association with USA Network altogether as Smackdown remains on it for the next five years in a brand-new deal. Smackdown is also expanding to three hours starting from this Friday.
Raw was originally supposed to end its USA Network run in October but the Netflix deal was not kicking in until January 6, enabling WWE and NBCUniversal to strike a separate, three-month deal worth $25 million to keep the red brand on USA. The show moved to two hours on October 7, ending its continuous three-hour broadcast after 12 years.
