Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: When did the WWE Network intorduce the Raw brand?
Raw is a brand of the U.S. based professional wrestling promotion WWE. The brand was first established on March 25, 2002, with a draft on "Monday Night Raw" and went into effect one week later on April 1. The brand split was discontinued in August 2011, but was brought back in July 2016. Wrestlers assigned to the Raw brand wrestle predominantly on the "Raw" television program as well as "Main Event", the seasonal "Mixed Match Challenge", and Raw branded or co-branded pay-per-view events and WWE Network events. During the first brand split, they also competed on "Heat" and on "ECW" under a talent exchange program.
The World Heavyweight Championship was established in 2002 as a second world championship in WWE during the time of the first brand extension. During this period, the World Heavyweight Championship would be the primary championship for either the Raw or Smackdown brand, with the WWE Championship on the other. The brand extension ended in 2011, allowing both championships to appear on both shows. On December 15, 2013, World Heavyweight Champion John Cena faced WWE Champion Randy Orton in a match at , where the World Heavyweight Championship was unified with the WWE Championship as Orton defeated Cena. At the event, it was announced that the unified titles would be called the "WWE World Heavyweight Championship". WWE officially recognized Orton as the final World Heavyweight Champion, and retired the title.
The WWE Hardcore Championship was a professional wrestling championship contested for in the United States–based World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) promotion, formerly known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) before May 2002. The title was only contestable in matches under hardcore regulations, and could be won only by individual wrestlers. As a professional wrestling championship, it was introduced by the WWF on its television program "Raw Is War" on November 2, 1998, in which WWF chairman Mr. McMahon awarded Mankind the title. In 2000, the WWF instated the "24/7 rule", a regulation stating that the title could be defended anywhere at any time as long as a referee was present, which led to numerous title changes in shorter time periods; the rule was discontinued in 2002. On the August 26, 2002 episode of "Raw", Intercontinental Champion Rob Van Dam defeated Hardcore Champion Tommy Dreamer to unify both titles; the Hardcore Championship was retired shortly thereafter. The title was reactivated on two occasions afterwards, although they are not considered official reigns by WWE according to their official title history. On the June 23, 2003 episode of "Raw", Mick Foley (who was the first champion as "Mankind") was awarded the Hardcore Championship belt by the "Raw" brand authority figure Stone Cold Steve Austin for his contributions in hardcore wrestling. Edge and Foley then introduced themselves as co-holders of the championship in 2006, due to a storyline with alumni of the hardcore wrestling-based Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotion.
WWE was founded as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) on January 7, 1952 by Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt. CWC was the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA)'s northeastern territory. The NWA recognized an undisputed NWA World Heavyweight Champion that went to several different professional wrestling promotions in the NWA. The championship was defended around the world. The NWA generally promoted strong shooters as champions, to give their worked sport credibility and guard against double-crosses. While doing strong business in the Midwest (the NWA's core region), these wrestlers attracted little interest in the CWC territory. In 1961, the NWA board decided instead to put the championship on bleach blond showman "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, a much more effective drawing card in the region. The rest of the NWA was unhappy with Mondt because he rarely allowed Rogers to wrestle outside of the Northeast. Mondt and McMahon wanted Rogers to keep the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, but Rogers was unwilling to sacrifice his $25,000 deposit on the championship belt (championship holders at the time had to pay a deposit to insure they honored their commitments as champion). Rogers lost the NWA World Heavyweight Championship to Lou Thesz in a one-fall match in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on January 24, 1963, which led to Mondt, McMahon, and the CWC leaving the NWA in protest, creating the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in the process.
Heyman was the lead writer for "SmackDown!" from July 2002 to February 2003. On Heyman's 2014 WWE documentary "Ladies and Gentleman, My Name is Paul Heyman", Heyman stated that the "SmackDown!" brand he was writing was beating "Raw" in ratings, merchandise and live show attendance during a time McMahon wanted real-life competition between the Raw and SmackDown! brands.
WWE & Company is a fashion, beauty and lifestyle technology company specialising in the development of mobile, cloud-based, O2O commerce enterprise technologies, targeting the mainland Chinese consumers. WWE is a joint venture between The Wharf (Holdings) Limited (), Walton Brown Group (a company of The Lane Crawford Joyce Group), and eCargo Holdings Limited (ASX:ECG), initially capitalised at RMB 300 million. WWE & Company was founded and led by Thomson Cheng, President of Walton Brown, and Christopher Lau, CEO and Founder of ECG, as co-CEOs in Hong Kong. 
Walton Brown and ECG jointly invested RMB 150 million for an initial 50% equity interest and The Wharf (Holdings) Limited, which operates Harbour City and Times Square in Hong Kong, will co-invest another RMB 150 million for a 50% equity interest through Novel Colour, a wholly owned subsidiary.
Following the end of the first brand extension in August 2011, both the WWE Champion and World Heavyweight Champion could appear on both "Raw" and "SmackDown". In November 2013, the night after Survivor Series, then-World Heavyweight Champion John Cena made a challenge to then-WWE Champion Randy Orton to determine an undisputed WWE world champion. Orton defeated Cena in a TLC match at the pay-per-view on December 15, 2013, to unify the titles. Subsequently, the unified championship was renamed WWE World Heavyweight Championship and retained the lineage of the WWE Championship; the World Heavyweight Championship was retired. Orton and subsequent champions held both championship belts until a single championship belt was given to then-champion Brock Lesnar in 2014.
53. Paul Heyman Debuts on Raw - Paul Heyman debuts on "Raw" as an announcer. Paul feels that he had to go to WWF in order to move on, and get on with his life. The wrestlers feel that Paul's dream was to be his own boss, but did not get that opportunity. Vince McMahon feels that Paul Heyman should be commended for everything he accomplished, and that Paul's realization that he had to move on spoke very highly of his character.
On May 23, 2005, Heyman returned in a segment with Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff announcing ECW One Night Stand, with Heyman in charge. On the May 22 episode of "Raw", Heyman appeared as ECW Representative promoting "One Night Stand". On May 25, 2006 it was announced that ECW would relaunch, as a third WWE brand. Heyman was in charge of the new brand on-camera but had minimal creative input off-camera as well. On the May 29 episode of "Raw", during a face-off with Mick Foley, Heyman announced that he was granted a draft pick from both Raw and SmackDown! by Vince McMahon. His Raw draft pick was former ECW wrestler (and Money in the Bank contract holder) Rob Van Dam, and his SmackDown! draft pick was Kurt Angle. Heyman predicted that Van Dam would defeat John Cena at "One Night Stand" for the WWE Championship and then declare himself the new ECW World Heavyweight Champion.
During the 2007 draft, ECW World Champion Bobby Lashley was stripped of the title after being drafted to Raw. The first half of the draft was televised live for three hours on World Wrestling Entertainment's flagship program, "Raw" on USA Network. The second half of the draft, or the "supplemental draft", was conducted over WWE's website, WWE.com, for four hours on June 17, 2007 as draft picks were announced at twenty-minute intervals. There were twenty-three draft picks, with twenty-seven wrestlers drafted overall, between the promotion's three brands: Raw, SmackDown, and ECW. For the televised half of the draft, each brand's draft pick was determined by nine matches, one being a battle royal for two draft picks, where wrestlers from their respective brands wrestled to earn a draft pick. The supplemental draft, however, was conducted randomly, with each brand receiving random draft selections. Raw and SmackDown! received five random draft picks, while ECW received three random draft picks. The televised draft picks were randomly selected by a computer that was shown on the Raw titantron. Every WWE wrestler from Raw, SmackDown!, and ECW was eligible to be drafted.
World Championship Wrestling Inc. (WCW) is a defunct American professional wrestling promotion, historically based in Atlanta, Georgia. WCW was established in 1988 when Turner Broadcasting System purchased the nearly bankrupt Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), which had been one of the major territories of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). Turner initially renamed the company the Universal Wrestling Corporation and shortly afterward renamed it again as World Championship Wrestling, after the name of JCP's flagship television show. In its early years, WCW was buoyed by established NWA performers such as Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes, along with emerging stars like Lex Luger, and Sting, who would go on to be dubbed "The Franchise of WCW".
As recognized by the WWE, the inaugural champion was The Fabulous Moolah, who won the title on September 18, 1956, which at that time was the NWA World Women's Championship (which still exists today). While she was still champion, it became the WWF Women's Championship in 1984. In May 2002, after the WWF was renamed to WWE, the championship became the WWE Women's Championship. At the start of the brand extension that began in March 2002, the Women's Championship was defended on any brand until it became exclusive to Raw in September that year. It was the only women's championship in the WWE until SmackDown created the WWE Divas Championship as a counterpart title in July 2008. The titles switched brands in April 2009. On September 19, 2010, at Night of Champions, the Women's Championship was unified with the WWE Divas Championship, retiring the Women's Championship.
At the top of WWE's championship hierarchy are the WWE Universal Championship on Raw and the WWE Championship on SmackDown. The Universal Championship is held by record two-time champion Brock Lesnar, who won the vacant title by defeating Braun Strowman at Crown Jewel on November 2, 2018; previous champion Roman Reigns had to relinquish the title due to illness (leukemia). The WWE Champion is Daniel Bryan, who is in his fourth reign. He won the title on the November 13, 2018, episode of "SmackDown Live" by defeating AJ Styles.
The two top stars of the Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, eventually left the company in 2003 and 2004 respectively, while newcomers such as Brock Lesnar, who would become the youngest WWE Champion and Randy Orton, who became the youngest World Heavyweight Champion, saw huge success. Triple H would also be featured prominently during this time, winning several of his fourteen world championships, as would The Undertaker whose WrestleMania win streak started gaining fame. Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Edge, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, John Cena, Batista, John "Bradshaw" Layfield, and Rob Van Dam were also given main event opportunities and all ended up becoming multiple-time world champions. From mid 2002 to 2003, WWE brought several prominent WCW stars to the company, including Eric Bischoff, Scott Steiner, Goldberg, Kevin Nash and Ric Flair. The Great American Bash, originally a WCW pay-per-view event, made its debut in WWE.
Following the end of the first brand extension in 2011, both the World Heavyweight Champion and WWE Champion could appear on both "Raw" and "SmackDown". In 2013, the night after Survivor Series, then-World Heavyweight Champion John Cena made a challenge to then-WWE Champion Randy Orton to determine an undisputed WWE world champion. Randy Orton defeated John Cena in a TLC match at the pay-per-view on December 15, 2013, to unify the titles. Subsequently, the WWE Championship was renamed WWE World Heavyweight Championship. The unified championship retained the lineage of the WWE Championship, and the World Heavyweight Championship was retired. With his victory over John Cena, Randy Orton became the final World Heavyweight Champion. Like with the Undisputed Championship, the Big Gold Belt was used in tandem with the WWE Championship belt to represent the WWE World Heavyweight Championship until a single belt was presented to then champion Brock Lesnar in August 2014.
WWE's origins can be traced back as far as 1952 when Roderick James "Jess" McMahon and Toots Mondt created the Capitol Wrestling Corporation Ltd. (CWC), which joined the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in 1953. McMahon, who was a successful boxing promoter, began working with Tex Rickard in 1926. With the help of Rickard, he began promoting boxing and wrestling at the third Madison Square Garden. It was not the first time McMahon had promoted wrestling cards, as he had already done so during the 1910s.
Presided by Richard Negrin, produced by Hugo Savinovich and Danny Nieves Gerena as their Director of talents relations the World Wrestling League was founded in late 2012 and began its media exposition, with Josian Omed Vázquez Díaz as promotion's press manager, on January 21, 2013. The promotion was officially launched in a press conference held at the Water Club hotel in San Juan. In this event, WWL announced the signing of several high-profile Puerto Rican wrestlers, including former champions of the International Wrestling Association and World Wrestling Council Eric Pérez, Roberto Rubio and José "Monster Pain" Torres. The company also presented its business plan, noting that it intended to have an international scope instead of directly competing with other promotions in Puerto Rico. A series of alliances were made with several international promotions including Wrestling Alliance Revolution (WAR) in Ecuador, Leader Wrestling Assotiation (LWE) in Peru, Dominican Wrestling Entertainment (DWE) in the Dominican Republic and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in the United States. During the following months, the promotion focused on creating its final roster and production team, which saw the exclusion of Víctor Siebens, owner of the Puerto Rico Wrestling Association, who had served as producer during the first months and the inclusion of Danny Nieves Gerena who was the promoter of NWA Chicago to fill the role. In February, two of the IWA's and WWC's main producers in the past, Héctor Moyano, Sr. and his eponymous son joined to work on the production of the television show, "Campeones del Ring", which was launched on Tele Isla and CW Puerto Rico the following week. Axel Cruz was contracted to serve as the promotions main announcer along Moyano, with Joe Don Smith and Harold Santy serving as counterparts for the English announce table. However, the announcing staff was changed due to the death of Moyano due to illness, with José Laureano joining it before his demise. In mid-February the WWL announced the inclusion of then NWA World Champion Kahagas and WXW World Champion Joe "Hercules" Gómez to the roster of its first show. This was followed by alliances with Lucha Libre AAA World Wide (AAA) in Mexico and Pro Wrestling Revolution (PWR) in California, with both of these companies agreeing for their champions to expose the titles outside of their territories. On February 16, the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum was selected to host WWL's first show, "Idols of Wrestling".
The NWA’s presence in Japan was established in 1953, when Japanese wrestler/promoter Rikidozan founded the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance, (JWA) which quickly became the main promotion in Japan. In 1972, the JWA’s two top draws Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki left to form their own promotions, All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) and New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) respectively. As a result, the JWA soon folded. AJPW became an NWA member upon its inception in 1973 and stayed until the late 1980s. NJPW was also a member of the NWA at various points between 1975 and 1985, mainly in order to gain control of the NWA Junior Heavyweight Championship. In 1992 and 1993, NJPW joined with the NWA once more to re-establish and promote the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, but left the NWA when WCW withdrew. NJPW returned to the NWA in 2004, again mainly for the NWA Junior Heavyweight Championship, and it is not a connection that is strongly emphasized. Between NJPW's departure in 1993 and its return in 2004 NWA representation in Japan was scattered among a few independent promotions: the International Wrestling Association of Japan (1994–1996); the Wrestle Yume Factory (1995–1997), the Universal Fighting Arts Organization (1999–2000); and Pro Wrestling Zero-One (2001–2004). In June 2007, the Inoki Genome Federation replaced NJPW as the Japanese affiliate of the National Wrestling Alliance. In February 2008, however, New Japan returned to the NWA. At the annual meeting in 2010, New Japan did not renew its membership and left the NWA yet again. In 2011, Pro Wrestling Zero1 returned to the NWA as their Japanese territory.
In March 2001, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) purchased World Championship Wrestling. Soon after, "The Invasion" took place, in which The Alliance was ultimately dismantled. Following the Survivor Series in November 2001, the title was renamed the WWF Cruiserweight Championship, replacing the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship. Following the WWF/WWE name change in 2002, the championship was subsequently referred to as the WWE Cruiserweight Championship and became exclusive to the SmackDown brand.
On September 28, 2007, the title was vacated after the final champion, Hornswoggle, was stripped of the championship by SmackDown! General manager, Vickie Guerrero. Hornswoggle had won the championship in a Cruiserweight Open at that year's The Great American Bash pay-per-view event. The last ever match contested for the title occurred on the August 31, 2007 episode of "SmackDown!", when Hornswoggle successfully defended the title against Jamie Noble.
Owing to its TV program aired on TV Asahi, NJPW is the largest professional wrestling promotion in Japan and the second largest promotion in the world. It was affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance at various points in its history. NJPW has had agreements with various MMA and professional wrestling promotions around the world, including WWE, World Championship Wrestling, American Wrestling Association, World Class Championship Wrestling, Impact Wrestling, WAR, UWFi, Ring of Honor, Pride Fighting Championships, and Jersey All Pro Wrestling. NJPW's biggest event is the January 4 Tokyo Dome Show, held each year since 1992 and currently promoted under the Wrestle Kingdom banner.
The main event was for the WWE Undisputed Championship between The Rock and Brock Lesnar. Lesnar dominated early with some power moves. The Rock went for the Sharpshooter. Lesnar's manager Paul Heyman got involved in the match, as he was attacked by The Rock, who executed a Rock Bottom through a broadcast table on Heyman. The Rock and Brock Lesnar gave each other a "Rock Bottom". The match came to an end when Lesnar stopped a People's Elbow and a "Rock Bottom" and then executed the "F-5" on The Rock for the win and the title. Lesnar remained the youngest world champion in WWE history until Randy Orton won the World Heavyweight Championship in 2004, although Lesnar remains the youngest WWE Champion in history.
On March 10, 2005, Viacom and WWE decided not to go on with the agreement with Spike TV, effectively ending "Raw" and other WWE programs's tenure on the network when their deal expired in September 2005. On April 4, 2005, WWE announced a three-year deal with NBCUniversal to bring "Raw" back to its former home, the USA Network, with two yearly specials on NBC and a Spanish "Raw" on Telemundo. On the same week as "Raw"s return to the USA Network, Spike TV scheduled Ultimate Fighting Championship's live "Ultimate Fight Night" in "Raw"'s old timeslot in an attempt to go head-to-head with "Raw".
On March 10, 2005, Viacom and WWE decided not to go on with the agreement with Spike TV, effectively ending "Raw" and other WWE programs's tenure on the network when their deal expired in September 2005. On April 4, 2005, WWE announced a three-year deal with NBCUniversal to bring "Raw" back to its former home, the USA Network, with two yearly specials on NBC and a Spanish "Raw" on Telemundo. On the same week as "Raw"s return to the USA Network, Spike TV scheduled Ultimate Fighting Championship's live "Ultimate Fight Night" in "Raw"'s old timeslot in an attempt to go head-to-head with "Raw".
On May 25, 2016, it was announced that WWE would be reintroducing the brand split in July, with distinctive rosters for both Raw and SmackDown. On the July 11 episode of "Raw", Vince McMahon named Stephanie McMahon the commissioner of "Raw". The draft took place on the live premiere of "SmackDown Live" on July 19, with the general managers of the respective brands hand-picking the wrestlers for their brands. Raw's Commissioner Stephanie McMahon and General Manager Mick Foley created a new championship—the WWE Universal Championship. This championship would be exclusive to the Raw brand, as the WWE World Championship had become exclusive to the SmackDown brand. Clash of Champions was scheduled as the first Raw-exclusive pay-per-view since January 2007 and the reintroduction of the Cruiserweight division where as Elimination Chamber has been scheduled as final Raw-exclusive pay-per-view making upcomings to be interbranded after WrestleMania.
Initially, the Undisputed WWE Championship and the original WWE Women's Championship were available to both brands. The other championships were exclusive to the brand the champion was a part of. When the brand extension began, Raw received the Intercontinental Championship and European Championship when their respective holders were drafted. In September 2002, the WWE Undisputed Championship became the WWE Championship again and was moved to SmackDown, prompting Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff to create the World Heavyweight Championship for Raw. Shortly thereafter, Raw became the exclusive brand for the World Tag Team Championships, the Intercontinental Championship and the WWE Women's Championship.