WWF's flagship show Pre-RAW?

[wildojinx]

What was the flagship show for the WWF before RAW? Some have said Prime Time Wrestling, but if you watch it, it was just a mishmash of house show matches, recycled syndie stuff, and dark matches. The only major angle that ever occurred was the Mr. Perfect face turn. Most of the major stuff actually happened on Superstars (or its predecessor, Championship Wrestling), and to a lesser extent, Challenge. A case can be made for Saturday Night's Main Event, but that wasnt a regular show, it was the equivalent of a PPV, only shorter and free. If you want to get technical, some major stuff still happened on Superstars even post-RAW (Diesel winning the IC belt comes to mind), but by 1996 almost everything major was on RAW.

[chronocross]

I'd say it's WWF Superstars from the fall of 86-onward for their weekly shows and before that Championship Wrestling, it's where a lot of the big angles/title changes happened.

[CMWaters]

Even after Raw started Superstars had big things happening on it (Bob Backlund's heel turn in 1994 for example) since the show was still in bigger venues than Raw in the Manhattan Center. Wasn't until around I wanna say 1996 that Superstars was retooled and Raw took over as the top show.

[fw91]

I'd argue RAW was still a tad behind Superstars during it's infancy

[James Fabiano]

Superstars, hands down.

[Deleted]

Feb 9, 2022 16:51:32 GMT -5 fw91 said:

I'd argue RAW was still a tad behind Superstars during it's infancy

People who were in WWF at the time say it was Superstars until the Monday Night War heated up.

So yes, this is the correct answer.

[tafkaga]

Superstars, although Prime Time was my show. I liked the roundtable format especially.

[Aceorton]

Superstars was syndicated and could reach more people, so anything big that was happening generally originated there and then was re-aired and discussed on the other shows. People who didn't have cable were shut out of Prime Time on USA, but most people had Superstars (and Challenge, which tended to get way fewer angles) on a local station.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Superstars.


Although we also got Maple Leaf Wrestling, so any big angles would replay there. For instance and I can't remember which way around it went but I recall the cobra biting Macho was censored on one and not the other. Though now it always plays uncensored. Although WWE would often censor things to sell them as well, so maybe it was the replays suddenly being censored.