On the May 1, 2006 version of "Raw", Joey Styles said he was quitting (kayfabe). His vacating of the announcer position set the stage for Jim Ross to return to Raw's commentary booth, thus ending the storyline where Ross got fired by Linda McMahon. This freed Styles to become a commentator for the ECW brand when it launched in June.
In Canada, after an 11-year run on TSN, "Raw" moved to rival sports broadcaster The Score after it was announced that TSN would be carrying "Monday Night Football"' for the 2006 season. This also meant that Canadian viewers would be watching via tape-delay, as The Score did not broadcast "Raw" live at first, but in 2007, started airing the show live.
During the September 25, 2006 episode of "Raw" in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the opening of "Raw" suffered a blackout. Spotlights were the only lights running in the house. Power in the presentation was later back. Another similar moment happened back on May 26, 1996 in Florence, South Carolina for WWF , when a major thunderstorm hit the Florence Civic Center causing major chaos for the PPV. That Tuesday, returned to North Charleston, South Carolina to finish out three matches that were not shown because of the lost power feed.
On October 9, 2006, "Raw" held a three hour season start called the "Raw Family Reunion", where the Raw brand had a new logo and theme song, Papa Roach's ""...To Be Loved"". The episode also featured talent from the SmackDown! and ECW brands. Later that month, on October 23 "Raw" aired its 700th episode, making it the longest running weekly entertainment show, without a hiatus, in television history.
On June 25, 2007, "Raw" was scheduled in Corpus Christi, Texas to be a three-hour special memorial show for the (kayfabe) death of the Mr. McMahon character after he had been presumed dead in a limo explosion. The event was canceled due to the real death of Chris Benoit and his family earlier that day, with a three-hour Chris Benoit memorial show being shown instead. This was the first time that "Raw" had been shown with no viewers and had Vince McMahon breaking kayfabe to address the viewers at home. The show had extracts from the DVD , showing some of Benoit's most memorable matches, along with comments from some of Benoit's colleagues. However, when the facts of Benoit's death came to light, WWE pulled this episode from international markets which aired "Raw" on a tape delay basis. Several channels announced the episode was being withheld for legal reasons. A substitute "Raw", hosted by Todd Grisham from WWE Studios, was created featuring recaps of big-time championship changes of the past year. The episode started with a message from Vince McMahon which originally aired on the edition of June 26 of "ECW".
John Cena's 380 day championship reign was ended due to injury by Randy Orton on the October 1 episode of Raw. Orton won the title that Sunday at No Mercy.
On December 10, 2007 "Raw" celebrated its 15th anniversary in a three-hour spectacular on the USA Network with the returns of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Rob Van Dam, The Godfather, Steve Blackman, Howard Finkel, Ted DiBiase, Eric Bischoff, Marty Jannetty, Gangrel, Trish Stratus, Lita, Sunny, Hulk Hogan and Mick Foley (as Mankind) among others. Along with several reunions of former tag teams and also included a 15-man "15 Years of Raw" battle royal. The RAW XV: 15th Anniversary DVD was also sold that had the best moments in Raw history.
In April 2008 as part of the United States presidential election, candidates Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton presented special messages on W.W.E. Raw. The show was watched by an estimated 4.97 million viewers, of which there were 1.45 million viewers who were men aged 18 to 34: an important group of voters the candidates were trying to talk to.
In 2009, at No Way Out that February 15, Edge won the World Heavyweight Championship in Raw's Elimination Chamber match, thus making it a SmackDown exclusive title and giving SmackDown two top tier championships. As a result of the 2009 WWE Draft in April, WWE Champion Triple H was drafted to the Raw brand, while the World Heavyweight Championship moved to the Raw brand after Edge lost the title to John Cena at WrestleMania XXV. SmackDown would regain the World Heavyweight Championship at Backlash (2009) when Edge defeated John Cena to win the championship. In addition, SmackDown and Raw would exchange both women-exclusive championships with Raw gaining the WWE Divas Championship and SmackDown gaining the WWE Women's Championship. Also, SmackDown and Raw exchanged the WWE Intercontinental Championship which is now exclusive to SmackDown and the WWE United States Championship which is exclusive to Raw Brand, for the first time ever.
On June 15, 2009, McMahon announced on a special three-hour edition of Raw that he had "sold" the WWE Raw franchise to Donald Trump, who appeared on-screen to confirm it and declared he would be at the following commercial-free episode in person. WWE issued a press release on the scripted sale while the USA Network later issued a statement confirming the "sale" as part of a storyline. The statement was issued in response to multiple news sources having mistakenly reported the event as legitimate. Due to the mistake, on the day following the announcement, WWE's stock on the New York Stock Exchange notably fell. Despite USA Network's acknowledgment that the sale was fictional, Randy Katz, a securities lawyer with Baker & Hostetler, commented on the Fox Business Network that a probe by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against WWE and USA Network owner General Electric "certainly is a possibility. The next week, Vince McMahon repurchased Raw from Donald Trump and announced that a "Guest host" initiative originally introduced by Trump in response to the position of General Manager being vacant would go in effect on June 29. Each weekly guest host is usually either a WWE Hall of Famer, a former or returning talent, or other celebrity. The guest host or hostess assumes the role of a brand General Manager, serving as Raw's authority figure for the day. The following year, it was announced that with Vickie Guerrero (and subsequently Bret Hart) becoming the new full-time GM, the guest hosts (while continuing to appear) would no longer have booking power.
In 2010, TNA IMPACT!, which normally airs on Thursdays, would go head to head with Raw in a three-hour live broadcast. This would be the first time since March 2001 that two major wrestling promotions would go head-to-head in a Monday night ratings competition. TNA promoted the debut of Hulk Hogan leading to the broadcast. WWE countered by announcing the return of Bret Hart, who had not appeared with the company since the Montreal Screwjob in 1997. The ratings showed that, much like the first Monday Night War, Raw came out on top, averaging 5.6 million viewers while iMPACT! averaged 2.2 million viewers.[25]
On March 8, 2010, Impact! permanently moved to Monday nights to compete head-to-head with Raw. After declining ratings, Spike executives announced that starting April 5, Impact! would air an hour earlier than Raw. After scoring its lowest ever rating at 0.5, it was announced May 3 that Impact! would be moving back to its original time on Thursdays starting May 13.[28] Since then on April 19, 2010, many of the WWE Raw superstars were stranded in Belfast due to the ash cloud from Eyjafjallajökull (a volcano in Iceland) hovering over most of Europe and causing many flights to be put on hold. Former ring announcer Lilian Garcia announced that night while the SmackDown roster took part in production of the Raw episode. The following month on May 17, 2010, Raw aired its second overall commercial free episode from the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario.