WWE Raw Rating: Are Kevin Nash and CM Punk Helping the Numbers?

Some of you may not be interested in columns, such as this one. It covers a little bit of the business side of the company.

Being that I tend to stay as far away as possible from "fantasy booking," and more closely to "realistic options," it is articles like this one that make me do it.

No André the Giant vs Big Show matchmaking. No Undertaker losing at Wrestle Mania garbage. No John Cena heel turn talk for the 7,589th time in the past few years.

None of that.

Just evaluating what is in front of us, and looking at cold hard facts (rating numbers) as to what is or is not working for the WWE right now.

With that said, I enjoyed Raw last night. It had it's ups and downs, but it was a fine show. Thank god they did not answer everything in one night! String us along a little bit. Make us tune in each week...

However, the question will come up. Is all this booking working with the fans? Not the "hardcore smarks," the total fanbase out there—the WWE Universe.

It has been a mixed bag for Raw the past few months. Two weeks ago the show scored a 3.3 rating, it's best number in 10 weeks.

Then, last week scored a 3.1 rating—about what it has been doing, even before all this "Punk" talk began.

In the headline, I focused on Nash and CM Punk. Why? I felt they had the most power to move the needle this week.

Yes, Alberto Del Rio is the new champion. Yes, he had a main event with Rey, and yes, there was some issues with Triple H and John Cena.

However, the top of the hour went to Nash and Punk (again) using way too many insider terms and just insulting each other, one after another in "backstage lingo".

I touched on this a few weeks ago, but how many casual fans know what a "vanilla midget" is? Or bringing us Eddie Guerrero from 10-15 years ago? Or Oz? Vinny Vegas, huh? Or Johnny Ace just popping up out of the blue?

How many in the crowd were just scratching their heads and/or just "oohhing and aahhhing" because it sounded cool coming from Punk and Nash.

That was my only problem with this last few months of "worked shoots." While many may be loving it, and I am, how are many of the supposed 80-90 percent of the crowd (that isn't in the IWC every day) connecting all the dots here?

In a few hours, the Raw ratings are going to come in, and like I said last night, these numbers better be up from a 3.1. I mean, they BETTER be up.

Coming of a very memorable SummerSlam, and a hot Raw storyline, these numbers need to show improvement, and quick.

Last night was just preseason NFL on ESPN (and other cable shows). Next month will be the real deal, and with NFL comes about 10-15 million viewers each week.

WWE needs to get audiences engaged now, and I am still not sold on "breaking the fourth wall" as being the correct answer.....

UPDATE: First hour had 5,248,000 million viewers. Second hour had 4,861,000 million viewers. Overall number comes to a 3.3 - nice bounce back rating, but losing viewers from hour one to hour two is not encouraging...