Randy Orton, Seth Rollins Help WWE Raw Ratings Rise to 2.44M Viewers

Viewership for Monday night's episode of WWE Raw featuring the build toward Super ShowDown and Elimination Chamber rose compared to last week.

According to Mitch Metcalf of Showbuzz Daily, Raw averaged 2.44 million viewers during its three-hour broadcast Monday, which was up from last week's 2.34 million. The ratings peaked during the first hour at 2.67 million, giving it the highest-rated cable broadcast of the night in the 18-49 demographic (0.87).

A No Holds Barred match between Randy Orton and Matt Hardy was advertised for Raw, but the match never happened since Hardy was not medically cleared to compete after The Viper hit him with a vicious Conchairto last week.

Even so, Hardy cut a promo on Orton and went to the ring for a fight. Orton initially looked like he was going to show Hardy mercy, but he hit him with another Conchairto instead and then twice hit Hardy in the head with a steel chair while his head rested on the ring steps.

The main event of Raw marked the continuation of the feud between Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens. KO and The Viking Raiders beat AOP and Murphy in a six-man tag team match when Rollins interfered, which resulted in chaos breaking out.

The Street Profits ran down to swing the numbers advantage in favor of the babyfaces, as they helped Owens and The Viking Raiders run off Rollins and his crew.

Other key segments on the show included Charlotte Flair accepting Rhea Ripley's challenge for an NXT Women's Championship match at WrestleMania, Shayna Baszler vowing to earn the No. 1 contendership for Becky Lynch's Raw Women's title at Elimination Chamber and AJ Styles making his return from injury to cut a promo teasing a big WrestleMania match.

Also, Aleister Black beat Erick Rowan; Riddick Moss retained the 24/7 title in a Triple Threat match against Mojo Rawley and R-Truth; Drew McIntyre defeated MVP; Angel Garza and Bobby Lashley beat Humberto Carrillo and Rusev; Ricochet defeated Karl Anderson; Kairi Sane beat Natalya by count-out.

There is only one more episode of Raw before next week's Super ShowDown and two more Raws prior to Elimination Chamber, so next week's edition should be fairly action-packed and go a long way toward finalizing the card for those two shows.

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