WWE Raw Rating: Did a Taped Show in Mexico Help or Hurt the Rating?

WWE Raw has been a crazy program the past few months. Whether you have loved the shows or hated, nobody can say they are "stale" one bit.

With the NFL season in full swing and Monday Night Football airing on ESPN each and every week, WWE has had to stir their program up even more than usual.

With the monster numbers NFL gets, WWE can't sit around and not do anything about it. As some have already read, my thoughts on last night's Raw were "meh." Nothing big, nothing bad.

I am not here to discuss the actual show. I am here to discuss the ratings as of late. At the end, I will give my thoughts on the WWE Raw rating for last night.

Before jumping into Raw, let me just state that Mark Henry (and myself) has to be feeling pretty good right about now. Not only is he the best performer on WWE TV since he won the World title last month; Smackdown's ratings have shot up!

Here is a report on their great rating from last Friday night! Eventually, everyone will jump on the Mark Henry bandwagon...

Back to Monday night's numbers, it has been a tale of two stories for awhile now. Let me just focus on last week here.

There was a great report from ProWrestling.net that summarized the Raw rating last week. Basically, the show stared off strong with a 3.6 rating. By the time the main event started nearly two hours later, the rating was down to a 2.8 rating. The final number was a 3.2. Over one million viewers left the show in a two hour span though...

Ouch! That has been the story for WWE for awhile now. They can "pop" a number here and there, but they just can't seem to keep them for the entire show.

With that being said, last night's show was taped. Last night was also a historic evening, having Raw taped from Mexico. You'd have to figure a taped show means lower ratings, right?

Well, you would think so, but you add in the "special" effect of being in Mexico for the first time ever. Perhaps that would bring in new viewers, regardless if it was live or not.

WWE Raw numbers last week: The first hour grabbed 5,375,000 million viewers, while the second hour grabbed 4,667,000 million viewers. Again, that drop is very troubling. Clearly, people at home did not like what they were seeing.

WWE Raw numbers this week: The first hour grabbed 4,315,000 million viewers, while the second hour grabbed 4,635,000 million viewers. The overall number was lower (3.1), but it is a great sign to see viewers not only stuck around this week, but the show increased in viewers during the second hour.

In conclusion, it certainly seems like Monday Night Football and the taped show did nothing to help WWE. With the Vengeance PPV on Sunday, I think most fans are already looking forward to Survivor Series and any involvement from The Rock coming up soon...

UPDATE: According to the Wrestling Observer, the main event segment of Cena/Ross vs. Del Rio/Cole gained an extra one million viewers tuning it.