[Emperor Smeat]

Another interesting tidbit about RAW from this week's Newsletter involved Vince unwittingly playing a huge role in UFC's spike in popularity.

It both doomed RAW's future on Spike TV and WWE getting screwed with their talks with USA Network.

Originally Posted by Observer Ratings fell during this period. Perhaps the most monumental thing came in late 2004. Spike toyed with the idea of putting on a show called The Ultimate Fighter at 11:05 p.m. Monday nights, after Raw. The show was a last-ditch effort by Lorenzo Fertitta. UFC, with no television and no station wanting to risk the idea of live fights, was losing money and Fertitta was considering folding the company, or selling it. In fact, at one point, it was up for sale but when Dana White was only able to get a low number for it, Fertitta decided to keep it alive and take a risk on essentially putting together a reality show and buying time on Spike, which showed interest in the idea ... Spike went to Vince McMahon, because the feeling was that UFC was close enough to pro wrestling that it could be seen as a rival promotion. McMahon okayed Ultimate Fighter airing after Raw, and Ultimate Fighter maintained a huge percentage of Raw’s 18-34 demos and the show became an immediate hit. In 2005, with McMahon trying to get a better deal by negotiating Spike and USA, which wanted the show back, against each other, Spike was having so much success with UFC that they publicly announced they were canceling Raw. This gave WWE very little leverage and while USA paid WWF the $28 million that Spike was paying them, USA no longer allowed WWF to sell the advertising time like they had on Raw since its inception. So the attempt to play the two off backfired when McMahon needed USA and they knew it and he got a far worse deal.