With Austin gone and since we're half way through the year, I thought it might be interesting to look back at the first half of 2002's Raw Main Events and see the percentage of Raws that ended with a match as opposed to an angle/interview and the percentage of matches that involved Stone Cold. So here's what I have. In the instances of a closing angle/interview, I listed the match that happened before this closing segment as the main event match:
1-7: Tazz/Spike defeat The Dudley Boyz for the tag Titles - HHH Return Speech
1-14: APA/Rikishi v. Jericho/Storm/Christian - HHH Interview/Pre-Royal Rumble Brawl
1-21: Rock/HHH v. Angle/Jericho
1-28: Angle v. Austin
2-3: Austin/Rock v. Jericho/Undertaker
2-11: RVD v. Christian - HHH/Steph Wedding
2-18: HHH v. Angle
2-25: Austin v. Mr. Perfect
3-4: Angle v. HHH - Cage Match
3-11: Rock/Austin v. nWo
3-18: Rock/Hogan v. nWo
3-25: Draft Show: Jericho v. HHH v. Steph - Triple Threat for Title
4-1: Kane v. X-Pac - Stone Cold Returns and choses Raw over Smackdown
4-8: Ausin v. Hall
4-15: Undertaker/X-Pac/Hall v. Austin/Bradshaw
4-22: Austin/Big Show v. nWo - Flair Special Ref
4-29: Austin/Bradshaw/Flair v. nWo
5-13: Austin/Booker T
5-20: RVD v. Undertaker
5-27: RVD v. Guerrero - Ladder Match
6-3: Flair v. Austin - Austin's Last Match
6-10: Flair v. McMahon
6:17: Booker T v. Brock Lesnar
So, we have a total of 23 shows, only 4 angle/interview main events (3 of which involve HHH), and 11 main events (either actual matches or angles/interviews) involving Austin. That's almost half of Raw's main events of the year thus far that involved Austin in an official capacity and not counting the matches he wasn't "officially" involved in where he may have had a run-in or interfered in the outcome. Also interesting to note is that it wasn't until 2-3 that the Undertaker was involved in a main event match, it wasn't until 4-15 that he was in a main event after that, and 5-20 after that, with his total Raw main events at 3. Also HHH has only been involved in 7 Raw main events - with only 4 of those being actual matches. I'm not sure exactly what my point is here. Maybe it's that with Austin gone, that's going to leave a huge hole in the main event scene and hopefully it will lead to new people being pushed there. Or maybe the people who say the Undertaker and HHH are hogging the spotlight seem to be wrong when looking at the statistics this way. Or maybe I just don't have a point and thought it was an interesting look at WWE Raw 2002 thus far and that it would be fun to speculate where we'll go in the next 6 months.
It's sort of rough to compare HHH's raw main events to Austin's, since it appears that a big string of Austin's main events came after the brand extension. Granted, HHH was champ for a month of that, but his match was against Hogan, on Smackdown, so he really didn't need to be in the main event.
Also, for all we know, Austin was put in the main event in attempt to appease him, rather than because the company wanted him to be. Of course, this is just speculation, but the point is that the company's intention could have been compromised due to politics.
I was about to suggest that Austin's place on the PPVs this year would perhaps be more telling, but after realizing that 1) we're talking about RAW here, and 2) Austin was positioned below Chuck and Billy since WM, that logic seems shot
I agree that the brand extension screwed up any logical statistical evalution of the WEE-WEE, as most of the writers were on six to ten kinds of crack following that.
Bart: Hey, immigrants! Beat it! Country's full! Sailor: OK people, you heard the lady. Back into the hold. We'll try Canada. [the immigrants moan] -- "The City of New York Vs. Homer Simpson"
"That's what the Internet is for, slandering others anonymously" Banky Edwards (Jason Lee) in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back