This Week’s WWE Raw Ratings – Was Brock Lesnar’s Appearance Enough?

This week’s episode of Monday Night Raw (October 5) featured an appearance from Brock Lesnar, the fallout from Saturday’s live MSG show, and the start to WWE Hell in a Cell’s build. The ratings are in and last night’s episode drew 3.378 million viewers. This is slightly up from last week’s record low Raw ratings (during the three hour era) of 3.333 million viewers.

The hourly viewership rating for this week’s Raw was:

First Hour: 3.473 million viewers

Second Hour: 3.494 million viewers

Third Hour: 3.167 million viewers

Raw finished third in viewership for the night, falling behind SportsCenter and NFL’s Monday Night Football.

Mark’s reaction:

I can’t imagine that the WWE brass is jumping for joy over this news. The ratings are better, but barely. I’ve read that Vince McMahon has apparently been backstage micro-managing Monday Night Raw’s due to the low ratings. Since these numbers still are not where they would like them to be, I don’t imagine Vince letting up behind the scenes.

Brock Lesnar or the success of Saturday’s MSG show is not to blame for the ratings being what they are. In general, television ratings have been declining over the years due to the influx in popularity of streaming services and piracy sites. Plus, Monday Night Football kills Raw’s ratings every year. However, the WWE aren’t doing themselves any favors by giving their fans below average shows for the past two weeks. Lesnar’s 15 minute presence won’t do enough to boost ratings for a three hour show. They need to have quality programming throughout the entirety of Raw if they expect to even have a chance of competing with Monday Night Football. Since they’re not delivering in that department, these numbers shouldn’t come as too much of a shock.

Do the WWE have reason to be surprised by how low the ratings are since their last two Raw’s were so underwhelming? Any ideas on what can be done to help the ratings during these tough months of the WWE’s schedule? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.