WWE WrestleMania 28: You Bet the WWE Should Be Panicking over the RAW Ratings

WrestleMania season has always been known to bring about intense feuds, big stars, and inflated ratings.

In looking at the landscape of the WrestleMania 28 buildup period with rose-colored glasses, the best assessment the WWE could make is that two out of three ain't bad. 

RAW ratings, despite the returns of the Rock, Chris Jericho, the Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, and Triple H, have been lackluster to say the least. They've remained stubbornly flat throughout the entire WrestleMania season with ratings of 3.13, 3.25, 3.27, 3.09, and 3.04 in the five-week hype period leading into the biggest show of the year. 

The erosion in ratings over the final two weeks is especially alarming considering this time last year, the RAW ratings trended upward, building up to a 3.81 rating for the go-home show featuring a physical confrontation between John Cena and the Rock with Miz sprinkled in.

Given the poor ratings in the face of so many big programs, namely Rock-Cena, the WWE should be justifiably nervous as to whether or not this really will be the biggest WrestleMania ever. 

The Rock returned in grand fashion late last year, as he wrestled for the first time in eight years at the famed Survivor Series pay-per-view inside mighty Madison Square Garden.

After being the driving force behind WrestleMania 27 drawing over one million buys, Rock's impact on Survivor Series was far less pronounced as the pay-per-view drew an approximate 280,000 buys, up only slightly from 244,000 from the previous year. 

Looking at patterns and trends dating back to November of last year, and using basic logic, it suggests that fan interest in the ongoing Rock-Cena feud has declined significantly since the match was announced the night after WrestleMania. This leaves what is supposed to be a record-breaking pay-per-view in danger of failing to even clear the landmark of one million buys. 

There are a handful of reasons that could be behind the shockingly low ratings thus far, with some reasons even being auspicious signs for WrestleMania.

Some have suggested that fans have already been sold on the WrestleMania main event that they have now known about for a year.  

The WWE hasn't announced a WrestleMania main event one year in advance in the 28-year history of the event, and the flat ratings could be an unforeseen backlash of taking such a risk. 

One of the hook points of WrestleMania season has always been curiosity of how the main event picture will shape up, but with the main event set in stone immediately following last year's WrestleMania (on a show where a Triple H-Underaker rematch at this year's WrestleMania was heavily teased), that curiosity has been rendered nonexistent. 

There certainly is something strongly anomalous about the consistently lukewarm ratings given the star power that has been featured on RAW leading up to WrestleMania. Perhaps RAW really is taking a bit of a ratings hit as a result of a premature build up that has made fans as restless for RAW as they are ready for WrestleMania. 

But with the Rock being routinely involved in WWE story lines over the course of over a year, it's far from outlandish to suggest that his novelty has begun to wear off especially with unusual whispers of the Rock losing his touch on the mic becoming a point of discussion over the past month. 

One can only hope that the abnormally low RAW ratings will be explained by the WWE doing too good of a job selling WrestleMania. 

Pardon me for being the bearer of bad news, but this pay-per-view has 975,000 buys written all over it.

Who is winning the war of words between John Cena and the Rock?  Tune into B/R Video to find out, and follow Big Nasty on Twitter @ThisIsNasty.