by 2002 The Debut of the Beast Incarnate, Brock Lesnar follows WrestleMania X8 as Hulkamania returns!
The Raw after WrestleMania X8 was filled with question marks. Would the fanfare for Hogan continue from the Montreal crowd was one of those questions. It only took seconds to answer that one as moments after the show started, Hogan came out in nWo garb and the crowd went nuts for several minutes with another standing ovation that lasted for minutes on end.
It was clear quickly, the face turn of Hogan back to the ultimate babyface was once more, underway with full steam! The crowd really went nuts when The Rock came out and implored Hogan not only to lose the nWo gear but also team with him later in the night against Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, in which they did for victory! The Hogan fanfare would lead to a title run soon after.
New WWE Intercontinental Champion RVD was up next to make the first defense of his newly won championship. His foe on this night was the hated Christian, who was fresh off a loss the night before against DDP. RVD made short work of Christian as his rise continued.
The burgeoning rivalry of Trish Stratus and Lita would continue on this night as well. These two would go on to have the first all-female Main Event in RAW history later in the year as well. On this evening however the match wouldn’t go very far at all, sadly. Both the WWE Women’s Champion Jazz and wily veteran Ivory showed up to ruin the fun and beat both up.
The second biggest question of the night was how the WWE would handle dueling “kayfabe” owners Ric Flair and Vince McMahon. They had been feuding and couldn’t get along, thus, Linda McMahon announced the first ever brand split in company history as she named Ric Flair in charge of RAW, and Vince McMahon to oversee Smackdown. Over the next two decades, the WWE has bounced around with this idea and experimented with it several times.
When it comes to debuts, everyone talks about The Undertaker at Survivor Series 1990, or The Rock at Survivor Series 1996, but perhaps one of the greatest superstars of all time debuted on this night with a random run in. The Beast Incarnate Brock Lesnar arrived on the scene, with the maniacal Paul Heyman screaming his praises from ringside. He interrupted the match and destroyed both Maven and Al Snow. The fans in the arena and at home weren’t quite sure what they were seeing, but they knew it was big!
It turned out to be exactly that as Lesnar was dubbed “The Next Big Thing” and destroyed the majority of the roster by years end. Complete with a title win over The Rock at SummerSlam. From there, Lesnar went on to become one of the greatest WWE Superstars of all time.
RAW had seen it’s big debut in Lesnar, and now it was time for it’s first big turn of the night. Well, second, if you count Hogan. Anyway, the Dudley Boyz turned on their manager Stacy Keibler after she cost them their Tag Team Title match against Billy and Chuck. They put the extremely dainty Stacy through a table, effectively ending that partnership for good.
The night would conclude with the before mentioned tag team match of Hogan and The Rock versus The Outsiders.
