WWE Raw Rating Is In: Did Chris Jericho 'Save Us' Again?

Chris Jericho returned to WWE two days ago! The WWE Universe has been buzzing about his appearance ever since. Some loved it, like myself. Others did not get it and probably never will.

That is fine. However, ratings are what WWE will be looking at this week.

As I covered last week, WWE Raw got a 2.9 but showed increases from hour one to hour two.

This week, the viewership is back to its usual pattern, decreasing as the show went on.

Hour one of WWE Raw had 4,533,000 million viewers.

Hour two of WWE Raw had 4,342,000 million viewers.

The official rating for this week was 3.1.

My thoughts on the numbers?

Yes, the number increased from prior weeks, but the number is still disappointing. Spin it any way you want, but this rating has to be a little deflating.

Jericho's return was heavily teased, but I never "felt it" more than I did the infamous "2-21-11" reveal last year. Think of it what you will, but I had more intrigue seeing Undertaker/Triple H return last year than I did Jericho right now. In both cases, I was dead right on "who" was returning...

The other aspect most will look towards is the played out "football" excuse. Yes, NFL games are done Monday nights, but college games are still going on. It is a small reason, but it will carry some merit.

The "holiday" excuse has never been valid. I covered that one last week. Unless a show falls directly on the date, it does not matter.

The decrease throughout the show may seem surprising, but it is not shocking. The main event was thrown together and will likely only grab viewers for the overrun.

The big reveal of Jericho was in between hours. That never made sense to me. It just randomly popped up after a diva's match? Very strange placement for such a big moment!

Finally, I am sure the WWE Championship match grabbed viewers, but numbers don't lie. That match started the second hour, which decreased from the first hour. I still think Punk is safe moving forward as a top star, but things continue to be a little "touch and go" with him.

Other than that, we will have to wait on the segment by segment breakdowns to get any other information. It is certainly always nice to see numbers go up, but this number has to keep going up on the Road to WrestleMania. This is a nice start!

At the end of the day, everybody discussing the "It Begins" story will be watching next week. Debate it all you want, but you are interested in Raw in five days! Then the week after. Then the week after that, and so on. If numbers do not increase even more in the next few weeks, The Rock, Triple H and Undertaker may be called to appear on Raw sooner rather than later.

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