WWE's Stupid Fight Club: Raw Underground
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ต.ค. 2024
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Raw Underground was a mini-series of "worked shoot" matches that took place during the Pandemic Era of WWE television. Airing every week on Raw for just over a month, Raw Underground was the brainchild of Shane McMahon and the feedback for the series wasn't great. Dolph Ziggler, Dabba Kato, Braun Strowman, Nia Jax and others had matches in Raw Underground but the vast majority of wrestling fans rejected Shane McMahon's own little Fight Club.
#WWE #RAW #Wrestling
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As someone from Latin America who listens to the Spanish Broadcast, the overall watching experience is somehow different. Crowd noise is almost always piped down, no matter if it's cheers or boos, so we don't get to "experience the atmosphere of the arena" as much while we watch on TV (we also never get to listen to wrestler shouting spots lol).
Weirdly enough, during this era we only got 1 commentator for each show (either Carlos Cabrera or Marcelo Rodriguez). It really exposed how odd it is to watch wrestling when our heel color commentator (Marcelo) was trying to do a solo broadcast and be impartial and when our babyface play-by-play guy (Carlos) had no one to play off of.
Just my two-cents fron someone outside the US/UK.
Very interesting comment
I'm Mexican American and watched Spanish and English broadcast and they are totally different
That might be worse than no commentary lol
@@rafaelnavarro5522 I watched a few shows when I was in Mexico for a few weeks. It was SUPER odd to watch.
Definitely a problem that Shane didn't make a call to the legendary "Muffuger Dojo" to ask Sensei Steve "Muffuggin" Blackman and his proteges Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn. Could have really added that legitimacy to their dojo on Raw Underground
"Dad, can we go watch Lucha Underground?"
"No, we have Lucha Underground at home."
Lmao
i miss lucha underground :c
I gotta fart
I lead music at a church, and it was interesting watching WWE work through similar obstacles we were also going through during the pandemic. We never did pull the trigger on our church-basement fight club though.
That’s a really shame about the fight club.
are you still going on with your cute little pandemic catchphrases
Nia Jax made it 100% believable that someone could get hurt in raw underground.
😂😂😂
Her entitlement card has been played.
RIP jade cargill, she wanted Stamford Supermax on the resume for street cred 😂
And in RAW overall.
You know what underground needed… Steve Blackman and Dan Severn
Ken Shamrock too
@@Maverick33 Lion's den!
MENG!
And owen hart !
And Brooklyn brawler
I remember watching this at home and I was confused, but I went along with it since it was 2020. That year feels like a fever dream. I still remember Shane hyping up the fights with the strippers dancing along to the music.
ah yes, Shane McMahon still doing the young and hip 90s shtick at age 50 while looking like a potato. Guy's as out of touch and narcissist as his daddy. Even the wrestling gods are sick and tired of his act, hence the divine intervention at last WrestleMania
@@staalhard666 Yeah because if you are a certain "age" you have to act a certain way to impress the neck beards like you at home right?
@@staalhard666Shane can definitely still get girls at 50 bro… he’s rich
@@googlemyself4091 Hi Shane.
Strippers? Who was stripping? The only person i saw taking their clothes off was Bobby Lashley
This was a really good idea. It was very real feeling compared to the normal product. The cameras were horrible. If they would've shot it right, and gotten anybody else to do the commentary, it could've been something.
could not agree more
This idea seems like the sort of thing that would make more sense in the attitude era when wild brawls were happening in every match.
How did Shane always end up sweating more than any of the wrestlers just by talking 😂
As a rich kid, likely he's so used to being in an air-conditioned room, being out too long in an enclosed room sweated him much.
@@GameDeathGod air-conditioning sounds good right now. It's one Spring in Australia and it's already 33 degrees here.
he said it every time "dude that was sick" he was getting ill watching all the fights
Adderall my friend
High Blood pressure 😂
One thing that’s interesting is that when this aired, we didn’t even recognize a lot of people appearing on it (maybe the hardcore NXT fans did idk). But now a lot of them have been on the main roster. Apollo Crews bodyguard during his 2021 Nigerian gimmick, Viking Raiders, Omos, Madcap Moss (released). I remember when this was airing the only person I could really make out was Dolph Ziggler and he was putting in the work with his amateur wrestling background! 💪
I said the same thing it was an easy way to introduce new wrestlers and give new opportunities
Don't forget Marina Shafir who's now on the AEW roster
One of the jobbers looked like Cool Hand Angelo Parker in AEW
If they booked it like Josh Barnett's Bloodsport with guys who can have real shoot backgrounds, hire Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn or Steve Blackman in an "official" or "general manager" role and I'd watch.
Instead they made the Never Back Down wrestling equivalent with jobbers like daba Kato and a lot guys who have no fight backgrounds.
Lashley, Shelton Benjamin etc were good starts but not enough.
Shane tried to convince his father to buy UFC about 20 years ago. Now look what happened since.
He knows he should have bought it. Make Shane the Fortidas and keep Dana and Rogan.
Now they own WWE 🤣😭
I thought it was PRIDE FC which Shane wanted WWE to buy.
@@retronerds6884UFC does not own WWE... Dana and Vince sold to the same company so technically Dana still controls UFC and Vince still controls WWE it's just now they both answer to the same guy in TKO...
@@exeortegarubioNah, it was UFC. Coulda scooped it up for something like $20 million.
Lmao Raw Underground was an utter failure, but I respect them for trying something new
It was an attempt I'll give credit
Honestly, I didn't hate the idea. I thought it could've been something cool but i can also see why people didn't like it
It was just really there to give a breather to the fact that wrestling was happening in empty arenas. You can watch it, but eventually people are just going to stop tolerating it.
Compared to XFL 📉 S-TIER
Theres respecting trying...and then there is something so already ridiculous, even at first board meeting level...that you can not respect it. This was def not something that should have made it past a first talk
Raw Underground felt like something Vince Russo would come up with during his two unfiltered runs in WCW. Basically a scripted "Brawl For All"
Didn't Russo have something similar in WCW. I could swear I remember they had certain matches where Jerry Flynn and Meng fought each other in like boiler room of one of the arenas. It was advertised as a shoot fight or something to that effect. 🤔
You're reliving the war series is great but it's so much fun to see you covering other parts of wrestling like this too
The idea was kind of cool along with the visual set up. It was the execution that killed it
honestly, the fact that they had the opportunity to really build a new star from the ground up with dabba-kato and then just... didn't, is just so *perfectly* WWE and also a great encapsulation of the entirety of this weird show/segment.
But it felt Shane was trying new things to have more liberty
I appreciate Kenny Boy's enthusiasm, but they (WWE) were gonna need the whole Mufug Dojo to save this 😂. (No but seriously, they should've accepted his offer.)
Been waiting for this episode, 2020... What a time to be alive...
2020 feels like a fever dream dude. I can remember a lot of things I was doing around that point in time, but still doesn't feel real if that makes sense.
100% agree with you, that's what I meant. It was crazy, still is.
Look, I know I'm in the minority, but I enjoyed the concept of "Raw Underground". It was something different for those of us long-term fans that have gotten used to the cookie cutter wrestling format. It was a great way to feature stars that have a "real fighting" background (such as Dolph Ziggler) while also being a good place to feature talent that may not have a role on the weekly shows. I could've definitely seen it maybe being its own show, kind of like Sunday Night Heat. Maybe there was missteps, especially too many jobbers in my opinion. But with solid storytelling I think it could've been something good. Wasted potential.
I liked it too
I sort of liked Raw Underground
Just watch NJPW or GCW bloodsports
@@keepitwolfson no it's not the same
@ahmadceasar5484 it's very literally a bloodsport rip off but okay
2020 was a real strange year in the WWE.
In the whole world
America
New day kneeled..... it was strange
I like this for 2 reasons. It set up matches and feuds and that 1 time when we got to see dolph ziggler shooting and show off his wrestling skills. This has potential
It would have been a great avenue to build Dolph up and kind of rebrand him as more of a tough-guy legit fighter for a push, if done right.
The other day my wife said to me, "I completely forgot about Shane McMahon's fake fight club thing," then asked, "did you forget about that?"
I simply replied, "I was trying to." 🤣
There was one good episode of Raw Underground where The Hurt Business dominated everyone. Shelton Benjamin looked like a star.
WWE did bring it back to some extent a couple of months ago when Eddy Thorpe fought Damon Kemp in an NXT Underground Match. I feel as a match type it could work, but not as some weekly series.
nxt failed too..this concept sucks ...how do you script an mma/shoot fight?
I loved the idea of them trying something different during this time. Looking at this though is seemed like a lawyer friendly version/WWE of Control Your Narrative with the worked shoot fights.
That tvpg rating kills them.
Hey it was the Pandemic era! Everybody got a little weird back then. I like that they at least tried to shake up WWE.
This was before the pandemic era. The pandemic ended raw underground
@@pleaseshutup7053 September 2020 wasn't during the pandemic? News to me!
I really like when you cover some of the more wild and interesting ideas of the past few years. Would love to see you cover some of the NXT stuff during this era like the Index story, the NXT episode from the PC right before the pandemic kicked off or the first episode of the 2.0 version of NXT. Would make for some fun videos I think.
no are u 5 years old
I completely stopped watching WWE at the end of 2019, so this is the first I’m learning about Raw Underground. It seems like I probably wouldn’t have liked it, but it was really interesting watching this video and learning about this era of wrestling that 100% skipped over.
Lmao dw you didn’t miss much 😅
5:20 Is that Swerve Strickland? Well thank goodness for him Raw Underground wasn't his house.
It really effected wrestling more so than music, and reminded us that the fans are just as important as the people on stage/in the ring
8:44 lmaooo I NEVER would have noticed that look on Byron's face until you pointed it out. What a legend.
Raw Underground really needed Steve "Muthafuggin" Blackmon 😏
They kept him at bay with loud speakers playing country music.
What went wrong with Raw Underground? Shane McMahon's giant head is what happened. 😂
They brought it back last July, DO YOUR RESEARCH BABA BOOEY!!! It was in NXT
I appreciated that they were trying new things. It didn't always land but there was some effort to try at least.
Shane McMahon's no Tyler Durden
The dancing women were the only thing i remembered from Raw Underground.
It was the closest thing we got to 'Nitro Girls' in literally decades. Thats the only thing i wish they kept from this.
I'm not gonna lie, Black vs Owens and Kato vs Strowman actually had me intrigued.
12:22
That was Swerve and Mace (Ironically Mace would be a member of Retribution lmao)
I have to admit, i really like how empty sports areas look
I really think this was a Kevin nash idea. Cause on 1 of those shoot interviews he said they should do a more adult late night wrestling show.
Every Thursday and Sunday you make my day a bit better @Wrestling Bios
RAW Underground may not return, but Shane McMahon will most likely return at WrestleMania 40 in an on-screen role.
My opinion. The only way I wouldn't mind if underground comes back: move it to NXT, better production, Make a tier system(so if you're a newbie you have to earn the right to challenge someone), better shoot fighters with actual backgrounds, make it seem like a big deal(like the commentary is scared), and make it every two weeks instead of every week. It would be the only way I would bring it back and tolerate it.
This really could’ve been WWE’s “real” life version of Def Jam Vendetta/FFNY if done right.
I loved RAW Underground. It was a refreshing change
I commented the same thing.
When raw first started in 1993. It was at a small building. I liked it only one hour long too.
Why didn't Steve Blackman come in and clean up? 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Because he isn't willing to sacrifice his talent for 2020 Raw
Washing jobbers is beneath him
He had to fight the Coronavirus...and he won.
@@FerraristDXA squash match, barely an inconvenience for our hero!
He was busy fighting giant robot monsters
Man shanes comeback started so well the taker match, being smackdown back to equal level of raw. Then Sandi happened
It should have been a separate show on a separate network, and basically just have wrestlers shoot on each other.everybody hates the brawl for all but I’d love to see who the real tough mfs are in the biz
What makes you think something like that wouldn't be just as disastrous as Brawl For All?
@@Adam-kn3tv
What made the Brawl for All a giant clusterf×ck:
1. The rules were not clearly thought out or defined.
2. There was a designed, or heavily, _HEAVILY_ preferred winner.
So, when #2 couldn't come to fruition, due to a mixture of catastropic injury & zero fighting skill (the latter of which would have been massaged by repeating steps numbers 1 & 2 until "Dr. Death" Steve Williams made the finals or got KO'd during the process).
3. Since the wrong person won the Brawl for All, there was retaliation & the goalposts were moved.
It took a lot of factors coming together, for it to fail as spectacularly as it did.
Do you remember when WWE announced that the 3rd hour would be called "Raw Dark" or something like that and the lights would be turned down and it would be more mature content and then they did literally nothing different and dropped the idea?
Man, between Wrestling Bios, WWE & AEW, im so grateful for the entertainment they all provided during the lock down portion of the pandemic. 1 of the few things I could depend on throughout all the chaos. It really got me back into wrestling after years of not watching
I haven't watched Raw in years due to lack of cable, but upon hearing about Raw Underground, I checked it out on the Network when those Raws were uploaded 3 weeks after airing.
Yeah, it was silly, but I liked it because it was something different. I am also into combat sports myself, so that another reason why it appealed to me.
The Thunderdome Era was awesome to me. Call me old fashioned (I am 37, and a hardcore NWA/WCW guy afterall), but I LOVED the Thunderdome due to the lack of a live crowd. They have put so much emphasis on crowd interaction the past several years (such as cuts to the crowd during entrances for a sing along, or after a big move), that it just ruins it for me nowadays.
The pandemic really messed things up and WWE had to make due.
Make do*
2020-2021 were seriously the non-canon times of WWE, well for RAW I mean.
NXT and SmackDown were canon in those years 😂😂
I wish this worked. I loved the concept. Under utilized people just having short fights like this was entertaining for me. Sucks it was during the pandemic.
I remember when Benoit was part of the thunder dome crowd lol.
I didn’t quite understood RAW Underground. Was it suppose to be like UFC?
It was all about exprimenting with Certain concepts to try garner viewers as well as finding what sticks
How did you not understand what it’s suppose to be
While technically, *Raw* Underground did disappear forever, the Underground concept itself did not. Earlier this year on NXT, Eddie Thorpe had an Underground match with Damon Kemp.
Yeah and they called it Raw Underground, before they officially changed it to NXT Underground.
Today I learned about Raw Underground
I agree, calling this "Brawl For All II" isn't fair. Brawl For All didn't have a global pandemic to blame for its existence. Only a Russo.
Hang on you may of thought that the Raw Underground was stupid but I was in streams every monday night during Covid was going on and about 1500 people watch Raw on these sites and chat is going on constantly and I promise you the Chat was rocking in a good way for Raw Underground, We all loved it and thought it was something going in the right direction cause it was knew. I don't know why they got rid of Underground but it was def something cool that could of panned out if they let it keep going
i wish they made it more story focused, play into the kayfabe side like lucha underground did. maybe show kayfabe wrestler relationships outside the ring and use underground as a way to settle arguments in really stressful times. maybe as a way for in-character shane to capitalise on the pandemic and use built-up frustrations as a way to make money
I actually liked the pandemic era. Obviously, I prefer to have crowds in the arena, but it had its merits. I loved the chance to hear the matches being called in real time. I also really liked that they took chances and used their production value to do more of the supernatural or less realistic wrestling things that they can't do when there is a crowd.
If they had wrestlers, like Steve Blackman, Ken Shamrock, and Brock Lesnar involved in this project, maybe it would’ve been better
I stopped watching wrestling (except for old matches) during the pandemic, it felt so depressing to me having no crowd
Sounds like it could have benefited from a story around why Shane was doing this crazy underground fight scene. Could have used the Pandemic as an angle too. "They won't let us fight in the ring, so I'm putting on my own underground show!".
I thought Raw Underground was interesting and odd but at least they tried something new especially when the show(Minus Mcntryes Reign) was mostly unwatchable at the time
20:59 The subtitles though. "Here comes baked avocado". Oh my.
This should have been the first of many episodes of the WWE Blunder series.
Also, I can’t hear the word “legit” on this channel anymore without thinking of Kevin Sullivan…
WWE during the pandemic era sure was something alright.
Bayley carried the pandemic era 🫡 🐐
It was garbage
@@FlyingMonetnobody Carrie’s garbage
Only thing I loved at the time was NXT
I liked the concept of Raw Underground I mean if you enjoy Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport show it’s easy to see the inspiration for this match concept. But there was no heat behind the matches that occurred there no story just matches for the sake of matches. You could argue Bloodsport is the same but it’s a once a year deal not a weekly tv show. What they should have done is have it be a match type building up stories in the actual ring but have this ropeless ring be the blow off to the feud or something. I don’t know I’m honestly thankful we got a more interesting concept that’s similar with the fight pit match that I hope doesn’t go away with WWE just because Riddle is gone from WWE.
I get trying new and different things, but RAW Underground was pretty much WWE trying to recreate Jerry Flynn's The Block segments from late-stage WCW only in color.
Jobber #2 was Chico Adams, a local Indy guy from Florida, we all love Chico down here lol
The “fight music” track in the intro is a nice touch 👌
Raw Underground looked good on paper but poor execution
They should of had Tazz do the commentary. Be perfect for him.
Samoa Joe would have ATE if he was a part of Raw Underground. He's always been legit, and I think his style of wrestling combined with his swagger and size would have made RU pretty fun to watch
To reply to your opening statement about having fond memories of this era well I have one. Walter Vs Ilja Dragunov 1 on NXTUK. I think that match being in front of 0 fans made it feel 10 times more brutal. It’s worth a watch for anyone here who wants to see it
I sincerely enjoyed RAW Underground for the silly concept it was. BRING IT BACK!
the idea is interesting but it just wasn't done very well they did bring it back for a episode of WWE NXT as NXT Underground and it was done much better it also helped with how passionate the WWE NXT crowd is and the match was much more hard hitting and felt more like a fight the match was Eddy Thorpe vs Damon Kemp
Raw underground did return this year…in NXT
One thing you can say about Raw Underground: It was SICK!
Nice Maria Schaefer "we don't know her" reference. 10/10.
I been watching for like 30 plus years. This has to be the most baffling thing I've ever seen them do. So bizarre
This was already done when I started watching again (I started watching Wrestling Bios before I started watching RAW) but I definitely appreciated the pandemic era, as a fan who stopped watching when Austin was champion and Dwayne Johnson was only a wrestler. Glad I missed this; i also started (finally) watching MMA before I started watching Smackdown
Love this era
The internet had a field day during these days
As someone who was actually a fan of the pandemic era, I was super 50/50 on RAW Underground. Most nights I'd be like Byron, but on the other hand I kind of enjoyed this storyline dead zone where people like Dolph would work others like the Viking Raiders. It wasn't something you'd see in the ring, so it was neat to see there. Nonetheless a very wacky idea that I'm surprised had so many stars you see in NXT nowadays
I think filming them in a more cinematic way would've made it feel even more raw, gritty and dirty, which is the vibe they were going for. Dim the lights more, create more harsh shadows and hire a gritty cinematographer to film it. You can still keep everything else the same but it would make things at least feel more real. The way they did it was too clean, too bright, it felt like a set. They needed to hide these things so we can focus on the story and the actual fights. I think giving us a wide, bright set look instantly put us off.
Raw After Dark: “I’m the shittiest thing to come out of Raw.”
Raw Underground: “Hold my beer.”
Raw Underground felt like part Brawl For All and part Shotgun Saturday Night.
Cinematic matches should’ve been a thing back in the attitude era too, they could’ve done big things with Kane and the undertaker with a horror feel, I know Kane had “See No Evil” but he should’ve had a movie with his mask
That fine young gentleman getting knocked out by Lashley is Angelo Parker from AEW lol.
Raw Underground was actually brought back once... for an NXT show 😂
9:37 that guy looks like he appreciates a good Y2J match...
3:31 seeing John Cena in that haircut gives off such strong uncanny valley vibes that it makes me think maybe human cloning is responsible for him and Vince McMustache.
It failed because they totally half assed the concept.
It felt like they didn't care that much about it... so the fans didn't care that much about it.
It's absolutely an idea I'd be adding to a fantasy booked fed before seeing how it didn't actually work mixed with regular programming 😅
Yo, how are you able to split the tracks to these songs? I'm already behind on producing techniques, but these remixes make me feel stupid as hell.