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WWE: Monday Night RAW Arena Spotlight - UTC McKenzie Arena

Despite not being one of the largest Arena's in the South, the UTC McKenzie Arena has hosted three Monday Night RAW events. The arena was opened on October 8th, 1982 and hosted its first WWE event on May 12th, 1998. The event featured superstars including "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Undertaker, The Rock, Triple-H, and the late Owen Hart among others. The event ended with both Vince McMahon and, at the time WWE official, Gerald Brisco receiving a "stunner" from Austin.

Monday Night RAW returned to Chattanooga on February 22nd, 1999. The event held more toward the end of the "Monday Night Wars" had a "hot" main event between Kane and The Undertaker. The Undertaker would defeat Kane in just the second "Inferno Match" ever. Also in the show, X-Pac defeated Chyna to earn the No. 1 contender spot for the European Championship. Also during the show, The WWF Championship was on the line for the second time in the UTC McKenzie Arena but the match between The Rock (c) and Paul Wight (aka. Big Show) ended in a no-contest. 

On December 22nd, 2000, Monday Night RAW returned to Chattanooga for the final time at least as of January 17th, 2017. The show was shown on Christmas Night and featured The Rock vs. The Undertaker in the main event, the contest would end in DQ. The Hardy Boyz, Dean Malenko, Steve Blackman, Hardcore Holly, Raven, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Kane, and others were also involved in the show. 

Since that night, Chattanooga has hosted multiple house shows but due to the closeness of big cities including Atlanta Georgia (Phillips Arena), Nashville Tennessee (Bridgestone Arena), Memphis Tennessee (FedEx Forum), and others have taken the spotlight from Chattanooga but as the city continues to grow, things could look up especially if the city was to get a new arena. The current arena is on the campus of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The school has expressed interest in hosting the NCAA Tournament games but with the size of the arena has that interest hitting a wall. Should Chattanooga earns a new arena, look for WWE to circle it for future shows bigger than house shows. (Koelle,2018)

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