TAKE PWTORCH
WITH YOU! Get our iPhone App (FREE!): Click Here Or enter "PWTorch.com" on your Blackberry or other Smart Phone browser for mobile-version of PWTorch.
Torch Trivia
Trivia: Five questions on Raw's history - Who hasn't Vince mocked, First Raw, G.M. History, More Dec 11, 2007 - 12:53:53 AM
Welcome everyone, to Monday's Torch Trivia! Ian Hunter here, walking on in to the sound of a saxophone opening and a siren going off. For you younger fans, no, I'm not doing my best Scott Steiner impression. Can you believe it? Raw is (almost) 15 years old. But that didn't stop the WWE from celebrating an entire month early so they have footage worth showing for the year-in-review episode three weeks later. So in honor of the event, we've got five questions revolving around Monday Night Raw through all its incarnations. But first, we need to answer last week's questions.
1: D. By logic, you'd think they would have banned moves to the outside most of all, right? Nope. Apparently you could not do any knee moves to the head or throat. (After I wrote this up, I took a look over the net and found a mighty bad clip on YouTube of Bill Watts trying his best to explain such a ridiculous rule, and Jesse Ventura praising him for doing it. Worth a look.)
2: B. The match was filmed in advance at the Tucson Convention Center and edited up for time. In reality, it took the two men almost an hour to do the entire match based simply off the fact that they needed to walk to get to every area shown in the match.
3: D. Brother Love was talking to Jake about his SummerSlam victory over Bad News Brown when Martel snuck up behind him and decided out of the blue that it was a good time to make Damien smell better. Jake attacked him and got a spray of "Arrogance" perfume right in the eye.
4: C. His left ear to be specific. Piper had it ripped in a prior match and the wound never got a chance to heal properly until years later. Valentine took full advantage of it to make the match even bloodier.
5: E. Sadly enough, the first man to quit was the manager. Would you really expect any of the real Horsemen to throw the match?
I would have posted winners for last week's quiz, but we had none. Scouts honor, everyone had 3-4, but not all 5. But it's a new week and we got five new questions! Answer the questions and email your answers to TorchTrivia@gmail.com. We’ll post the names of those who got ALL FIVE correct. Good luck to you all.
1. The first night of Monday Night Raw was live on January 11, 1993 from New York City in the Grand Ballroom of the Manhatten Center Studios. The show featured what Vince thought was the best of the best in his company at the time, both in the ring and on the mic. But sadly, someone was absent from the taping who was originally going to be a part of the show long term, forcing McMahon to change the broadcast team lineup. Who was missing?
A: Roddy Piper
B: Bobby Heenan
C: Lord Alfred Hayes
D: Hillbilly Jim
E: Gorilla Monsoon
2. In early 1997 the WWF was definitely in a rebuilding period and took great steps to change the product. The show did three monumental things that would set the course for the Attitude era to come. It changed it's name to "Raw Is War" (declaring war on WCW) , it expanded to 2 hours to compete with Nitro, and extreme wrestling was brought into the fold as ECW invaded Raw. That's right, forget that whole horrible "Invasion" angle that took up most of 2001, the first official invasion of the company happened four years earlier. Heyman ran to the ring with the Eliminators, pointed straight at the announcers table, and made his proclamation. What did he say?
A: To hell with wrestling! It's time, to get, extreme!
B: Your challenge has been accepted! ECW is in the house!
C: Feel it J.R! Feel it for the rest of your life! Feel it!
D: McMahon, you can't ignore us any longer!
E: New York City, we have arrived!
3. May 24th, 1999. A special show went on dubbed "Raw Is Owen" in tribute to the death of Owen Hart the night before. The WWF was given a lot of grief for not only going on with the PPV the night he died, but doing a show the next night. However the company argued that the show must go on and that it's what Owen would have wanted. Out of the tragedy came a first for the show and the company as a whole, as talent broke character and gave candid thoughts on camera about Owen and the loss they felt. They were also given the option to wrestle if they wanted to. Which wrestler was going to have a match, but at the last minute decided it wasn't appropriate?
A: Steve Austin
B: Mankind
C: Edge
D: Road Dogg
E: Triple H
4. Now you can't talk about the history of Raw without mentioning the final conquest of WCW. Mainly because every chance they get, they love to show that clip of Shane standing in the ring on the dual broadcast. In fact that was part of the deal. A simulcast of Raw and Nitro for an hour, and that WCW got one final night on TNT to settle titles and officially announce the departure of the brand. During the simulcast, Vince had a monitor in his office that showed "live" footage of many stars of WCW, to which point Vince made fun of a number of former WWF stars who had left the company on less than stellar terms. Which of these wrestlers did Vince NOT make fun of?
A: Jeff Jarrett
B: Lex Luger
C: Scott Steiner
D: Ric Flair
E: Kevin Nash
5. Raw has seen its share of people "in charge." Three GM's, five Presidents, about a dozen commissioners, and I think almost everyone has been an assistant or "executive lover" to McMahon at one point or another. But no one made as big an impact coming onto the show in recent years than Eric Bischoff. In what can only be described as the most uncomfortable looking hug in history, Vince brought out Bischoff for all to see on the stage in July of 2002, and started what would be the longest run for an on-camera GM in the entire show's history. And during that time, Bischoff was given credit for a lot of things that he "created". So which of these things did Bischoff NOT get on-air credit for?
A: The Raw Set
B: The Elimination Chamber
C: The Return of Steve Austin
D: The World's Championship
E: The Raw Roulette Wheel
Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.
INCREDIBLE BENEFITS! Over 50 full-length audio updates per month (iPod compatible)... New weekly award-winning Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter (text and printable pdf versions) with latest exclusive insider news, new Torch Talks, great columns, Keller's cover story, much more... Hundreds of full-length back issues of PWTorch Newsletter from late-'80s to today... Ad-free access to PWTorch.com's Main Listing... VIP Forum with interaction with other subscribers and Torch staff... Torch Talk Library with text and audio of hundreds of interview installments from last 20 years... Great layout... Deepest archives on pro wrestling history anywhere... Keller's PWTorch Today PDF Bulletins with email alerts... VIP Email reports on major PPVs and TV shows... Staff Roundtable Reviews (text and audio) followiing major events... The best staff of writers and world class reporting since 1987... We'd love for you to join us and experience the most entertaining, authoritative, experienced staff of professional reporters and commentators in the business...
Compare the value of four or five months of PWTorch VIP content to the price of just one PPV. Can you cut 25 cents a day from your budget to make room for PWTorch VIP?
AND NEW FOR 2009! Monthly "Vintage Audio Torch Talks." We are releasing for the first time ever audio versions of our text Torch Talk updates, the historical first series of insider interviews ever. Wade Keller's newsmaking in-depth interviews with wrestling's biggest names are now being made available exclusively to VIP members. But you must be a member each month, as these are not archived, so they are replaced with a new one each month! This debuted in January 2009 with a 68 minute interview with the late "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith. Who's next? Hulk Hogan? Eric Bischoff? The Rock? Goldberg? Jeff Hardy?