During Vince McMahon’s announcement to open tonight’s RAW, he thanked Spike for a good run as “tag team partners” and put Spike over for doing a lot of growing up during their relationship, as WWE also grew up. He said that WWE was on USA Network before it moved to TNN (Spike’s old name), and will be coming home next week with a three-hour special.
While Spike allowed Vince to say RAW used to be on USA Network, they turned the audio off when Vince said RAW was returning to USA next week. The assumption is that Spike’s running tonight’s broadcast on a 7-second delay.
(UPDATE: At around 9:30, Jonathan Coachman made a statement that was also censored, but then said “if you want to find out what they’re censoring, go to WWE.com to find out.” WWE.com has posted the full video, uncensored.)
(UPDATE: JR, King and Coach took turns sneaking “USA Network” into commentary often starting in the 10:30 quarter hour, while also making sure to mention how good their run was with Spike TV. It seems Spike decided to stop censoring them.)
(UPDATE: As the show went off the air, “Next week on USA” was embedded in the usual closing RAW logo.)
Also on RAW:
– Vince also announced a 30-minute Iron Man Match between Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels, who are currently tied 1-1 in one-on-one matches this year, to take place at Homecoming on October 3, with “the outcome of that match going a long way in determining the #1 Contendership.”
– JR announced that the Ultimate Warrior turned down WWE.com’s invitation for an open mic at Byte This!
– PWInsider.com is reporting that commercials for RAW Homecoming on USA Network aired on some local cable systems.
