Most Glaring Omissions from WWE Raw 20th Anniversary Collection DVD Set

To commemorate the 20th Anniversary of Monday Night Raw that passed in January, WWE is releasing a set of 20 of "the best" episodes in the show's history in December.  Yesterday, WrestlingDVDNews.com released the full episode list, and unfortunately, there are some odd picks and puzzling omissions.

Raw has had some very memorable individual episodes, such as:

• "The Night of the Upsets," where the 1-2-3 Kid went from being squashed by Razor Ramon to beating him and Marty Jannetty returned to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship from Shawn Michaels.
• The wild show from April 1997 that's famous for Steve Austin ambushing Bret Hart in an ambulance.
• The night that turned the tide in the Monday Night War, where the first Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahon match was teased for the whole show, only to never get going because Dude Love attacked Austin.

Some of them are included, some of them aren't.  What would I do differently?  Read on...

Note: These are in chronological order, not ranked, with me working under the presumption that WWE has a quota for what to include from what time periods, so I try to replace episodes with others from around the same time.

With that said, let's get going.

Nov. 20, 1995

Why it Belongs: The night after Survivor Series '95, it features two excellent matches: 1-2-3 Kid fresh off a heel turn against Hakushi and Shawn Michaels vs. Owen Hart in Shawn's first singles match back after suffering a concussion in a legitimate bar fight.  In the first big Raw angle of the Monday Night Wars, Shawn Michaels collapses and passes out while making his comeback.

If you weren't watching back then, it's impossible to get just how much of a departure this angle was. Nowadays, WWE does injury angles where the announcers stop talking enough that we're all used to it, but this went further in some ways.  Not only did the show grind to a halt with no announcers saying anything as the paramedics worked on Michaels, but it went through two commercial breaks, way past the point an announcer would break in nowadays.

The angle was designed to give fans the impression that something was seriously, seriously wrong, and the little details (going through the breaks, no commentary, Hart looking concerned) did it in spades. While some aspects are more clearly fake now, like Michaels toppling dramatically, the close-ups, and the paramedic telling Pat Patterson that Michaels would be OK just as they went off the air, it was uncharted territory back then.

Something else to keep in mind: This segment went up against the first ever Hulk Hogan vs. Sting match on WCW Monday Nitro.  If you flipped over to Raw during the last commercial break like I did that night, you didn't see Michaels collapse in a goofy fake way, you just saw paramedics working on him after he collapsed.  In a way, it was more effective.

The Episode it Should Replace: Sept. 6, 1996 - "Raw Championship Friday" from a week where Raw was moved due to USA's coverage of U.S. Open tennis.  There's literally no reason to include this, as nothing of note happens and there were plenty of Raw "specials" like this when Raw was bumped by the U.S. Open or the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

March 31, 1997

Why it Belongs: Bret Hart reunites his family to form the new Hart Foundation as Raw starts to clearly outpace Nitro as the superior show.

Not quite the overall great episode some of the others are, but it opens with one of the best angles of the year.  While still tag team champions, Davey Boy Smith and Owen Hart had split up the week before and were now wrestling for Davey's European championship.  Bret, who had turned heel (but only in the United States) a week earlier, comes out to stop the match and cuts an amazing promo to finally reunite with his brother-in-law and his baby brother.  With Bret in the middle of his feud with Steve Austin, this added a whole new layer to the proceedings.

The show ends with Bret taking on the future Rock, Rocky Maivia.  In addition to being quite the historical curiosity, it ties into the big angle as newly minted heel Bret reviews to release his ringpost figure four leg lock and gets disqualified.  Steve Austin runs in, but Owen and Davey gang up on him with Bret, and the show ends with them running away when the Road Warriors finally run in to stop them, setting them up as the key tag team rivals of the Harts.

The Episode it Should Replace: March 3, 1997 - This is only on here for the main event, Davey Boy Smith becoming the first WWF European champion by defeating his partner Owen Hart in a tournament final.  It's a classic match, but it's already on DVD.  Bret Hart vs. Triple H is an interesting opener, but not interesting enough to recycle the whole episode.

April 21, 1997

Why it Belongs: It's easily the biggest omission. This is the episode that includes the show-long Steve Austin vs. Hart Foundation angle with the Austin vs. Bret Hart street fight, Austin ambushing Bret in an ambulance and Brian Pillman returning to attack Austin. A match between The Undertaker and Triple H ends with Mankind ambushing The Undertaker with a blowtorch, followed by Goldust and Marlena in street clothes ambushing Triple H and Chyna.

If you've ever seen this one, you know why it should be on the set. I'm honestly shocked they didn't include it. It's quite possibly the greatest episode in the history of Monday Night Raw, with a number of hot angles throughout the whole show and at least two of the greatest moments (the countdown to Bret accepting Austin's challenge and the ambulance attack), too.

The whole segment with The Undertaker vs. Triple H is a favorite of mine, too. The match is going along as expected when the camera lingers on two fans wearing baseball caps. Jim Ross exclaims "That's Dustin and Terri..." before cutting himself off and the match continues. Mankind, having scarred 'Taker with a fireball weeks earlier, takes the next step by running in with a freaking blowtorch, and that ends with them brawling into the crowd.

Just when Triple H and Chyna think the dust has cleared, Goldust and Marlena, sans paint, makeup, hair styling and all other trappings of their gimmicks, finally get revenge by ambushing them from behind. An awesome, chaotic scene that somehow didn't feel like overkill in spite of how wild the show had been up to that point.

The Episode it Should Replace: July 21, 1997 - This is only on here for the hockey style fight Bret Hart gets in with Vince McMahon (still an announcer) at ringside. A crazy and memorable moment for sure, but not enough to include the whole episode, especially at the expense of something as good as the show from exactly three months earlier.

June 30, 2008

Why it Belongs: In the first show after the 2008 WWF Draft, CM Punk cashes in his Money in the Bank contract to win the World Heavyweight Championship for the first time.

This show came a week after the 2008 WWE Draft.  Since WWE champion Triple H had been drafted to SmackDown, while World Heavyweight champion Edge had not been drafted to Raw and both retained their titles the night before at Night of Champions, Raw had no champion.

Edge came out to brag, and when he finished his promo and his music hit, Batista, his opponent the night before, ran out and beat the hell out of him for several minutes.

When Batista was finally done, it seemed like the show was lingering before going to a commercial break. As Batista got to the top of the ramp and you'd expect the show to finally go to break, CM Punk (newly drafted to Raw from ECW) ran out and cashed in the Money in the Bank briefcase to win Edge's title.  The segment went something like half an hour.

The rest of the show was built around the title win.  Punk's post-title win interview was interrupted by John Bradshaw Layfield, who challenged him to a title match to main event the show.  Punk won cleanly with the Go To Sleep and then dived onto the pile of John Cena, Cryme Tyme and the security guards who stopped them from running in, starting his title reign with a bang.

The Episode it Should Replace: April 21, 2008 - The show was built around a rushed King of the Ring tournament won by William Regal.  It looks like a great show on paper, but in practice, it was about average.

Sept. 7, 2009

Why it Belongs: Bob Barker hosts The Price is Raw.

Easily the best episode of the "guest host" period, Bob Barker was perfectly integrated into the proceedings.  While the whole episode was a lot of fun, the highlight is easily the opening segment, with Chris Jericho, Irwin R. Schyster of all people, Jillian Hall and Santino Marella in Contestant's Row.  I can't do it justice, but it was fantastic and Barker was an impossible standard to beat. 

The Episode it Should Replace: June 15 2009 - This was actually a very good Raw, but it's only on here for including the angle where Vince McMahon sold the show to Donald Trump, a flop that was undone as soon as possible.  Why, you ask?  WWE's press release about the storyline acted as though it was really happening and WWE stock went down 7%.

July 11, 2011

Why it Belongs: CM Punk solidifies his position as the hottest star in the wrestling business.

Two weeks after his famous "pipe bomb" promo in Las Vegas (and the first live Raw since then, as the previous show was also taped that night in Vegas) that got the ball rolling on him being a legitimate WWE main eventer, CM Punk follows up in brilliant fashion.  Two long segments book-end the show:

1. A direct follow-up to the pipe bomb promo where Punk was positioned as a babyface.
2. Punk negotiating a new contract with Vince McMahon and throwing out all sorts of demands (the start of the ice cream bars meme), ending after John Cena interrupted and Punk went back heel, eventually comparing Bostonite Cena to the New York Yankees.  Not that it ended up mattering the following Sunday in Chicago...

The contract negotiation was the first real interaction Punk ever had on TV with Vince, and it lived up to expectations in one of the best Vince segments of the last several years.  Punk made it clear he was here to stay as a main eventer and the hard sell for Money in the Bank was among the best WWE has done in a long time.

(I considered choosing "Raw 1000" from a year later, but the whole show is on the "Top 100 Moments in Raw History" set and I'm sure that's why it's not on the new set)

The Episode it Should Replace: June 27, 2011 - The "pipe bomb" in Las Vegas that got everything rolling.  Other than being a Raw Roulette episode, it's pretty average until the last few minutes, which are in the documentary on Punk's DVD set.