WWE Wrestling concert Alltel Arena tickets The WWF was not the only promotion to have broken ranks with the NWA; the American WWE Wrestling concert tickets Alltel Arena Association (AWA) had long ago ceased being an official NWA member (although like the WWF, they seldom left their own territory). But in neither instance did the defecting member attempt to undermine the territory system that had been the foundation of the industry for more than half a century.
On April 29, 1999, the WWF made its return to terrestrial television by launching a special program known as SmackDown! on the fledgling UPN network. The Thursday-night show became a weekly series on August 26, 1999.
In 1995, World Championship WWE Wrestling concert tickets (WCW) began airing its new wrestling show, Monday Nitro, live each week on TNT. Raw and Nitro went head-to-head for the first time on September 11, 1995. Due to Raw's taping schedule on several occasions, WCW Vice President Eric Bischoff, who was also an on-air personality, would frequently give away the results of WWF's taped Raw shows on the live WCW show. Some fans also looked at Raw taping results on the steadily-growing Internet; as a result, this caused the ratings of the taped Raw episodes to be lower.
In April 2002, about a month before the name change, WWE Wrestling decided to create two separate rosters, one on Raw, the other on SmackDown! due to the overabundance of talent left over from the Invasion storyline (which involved talent from the absorbed ECW and WCW rosters interacting in WWF storylines). This is known as the WWE Wrestling Brand Extension. Following the Brand Extension, a yearly Draft Lottery was instituted to exchange members of each roster and generally refresh the lineups.