Vince McMahon Envisioned WWE RAW Being ‘Like Saturday Night Live, Only Better’

Vince McMahon likes to really promote his company. That natural promoter in him doesn’t leave at any time, especially when he’s pitching a big idea.

There was a time when RAW saw guest hosts come in on a weekly basis. This caused some groans from certain fans, but it also made for some great moments along the way that are still talked about.

While speaking to The Masked Man Show, former WWE writer and co-executive producer Brian Gewirtz opened up about Vince McMahon orginal idea about the guest hosting era of RAW. He wanted it to be like Saturday Night Live, but he expected bigger things.  

“Vince always shoots for the stars. You got to give him credit. When The Network came out, I think the phrase was ‘like Netflix, only better.’ Whoa! That is quite a bold claim. I think similarly when we were doing the guest host era, he said something backstage like, ‘This will be like Saturday Night Live, only better.’ And all of us are like, ‘No, this isn’t going to be,’ I mean, maybe the [Joe] Piscopo era before Eddie Murphy better? But I don’t think this is going to be better in any sense of the word.”

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We’ll have to see if WWE starts booking celebrity guests every week once again. It did prove to help ratings in some instances. Pro wrestling fans eventually became tired of it and the novelty wore off. The practice was stopped, but you can never count WWE out when it comes to calling up a high profile guest for a week.

Thanks to Wrestling Inc for the quote