WWE Raw's Low Ratings, NXT's High Bar and More from the Average Mailbag

It's the beginning of summer, with the NBA finals reaching its climactic stages. Where do you think that leaves Raw ratings? Take a guess.

How many people are checking for Raw right now? How many people actually watched WWE on Monday night with LeBron James brilliantly turning heel to steal Game 6?

Pick a number between zero and 3 million, according to ShowBuzz Daily (h/t Wrestling Inc).

Raw is Warned

People need to stop treating the increasingly outmoded Nielsen ratings system as an indictment of Roman Reigns. There are plenty of ways to consume television these days, so an overnight rating against the white-hot NBA Finals is not the best representation of how many people watched Raw.

It's also worth mentioning that, quite frankly, WWE is not a hot commodity at the moment. We're heading into summer, where ratings go to die. The roster is in transition. All the WrestleMania attractions have dried up. Many fans only use ratings as an indictment of WWE's product when it's convenient.

This time last year, WWE's ratings were bottoming out with Seth Rollins as world champion, per James Caldwell of Pro Wrestling Torch. In fact, how do these same fans explain such a sharp dip in the ratings with Seth Rollins back in the fold in a main event role? Surely they'd be praising Rollins if ratings went up, right?

The only solution to WWE's year-to-year ratings decline is a combination of patience and technology.

Reigns, like LeBron James, Tiger Woods, Cam Newton and any top athlete in his field, is a polarizing figure who acts as a symbol of a society stuck in cynicism. He's fine as he is, because he isn't a traditional babyface but rather a market leader whom fans naturally react to based on core values of sports entertainment.

EndXT?

Yes. NXT TakeOver: The End was a good show, but after a series of great shows—including what may have been the show of the year at TakeOver: Dallas—I'm beginning to wonder if we've seen the best NXT has to offer for now.

It's getting increasingly difficult to top what NXT has done in the past, especially with so much of its talent recently being called up. There are now rumbles of additional NXT call-ups to fill out the Raw and SmackDown rosters following the brand split.

NXT's first few years could not have gone any better from an entertainment or popularity standpoint. But as it becomes more of a challenge to raise the bar, maybe it's time to lower NXT's standards to a possibly desensitized fanbase.

It's very possible that come the fall, Austin Aries could be NXT's top star with a cast of relative unknowns to work with. Bayley, Finn Balor and even Shinsuke Nakamura already seem to have one foot out the door, which would leave NXT in full-blown rebuilding mode. That's perfectly fine, as it is more in line with what NXT is supposed to represent.

Abysmal Development?

The elephant in the room ring that NXT needs to address is to actually begin developing talent again. The WrestleCon reunion with old names will only last so long before WWE has to get back on track with its own future.

We saw traces of WWE's actual developmental talent at NXT TakeOver, with acts like Andrade Almas and The Authors of Pain featured. As much momentum as NXT has with a roster of talented veterans, sooner or later the veteran presence needs to be the exception, not the rule.

Abyss doesn't really fit the mold of what WWE is doing right now, even in this new era. While I do believe he's an overachiever in wrestling, Abyss found a niche in the freak-show hardcore genre. There is no place for that in NXT, let alone WWE.

NXT just had its first steel cage match. It's still considered a big deal to use a steel chair. What's Abyss going to do in an NXT ring? Wrestle?

Alfred Konuwa is a featured columnist and on-air host for Bleacher Report and Forbes. Like him on Facebook.