WWE Raw Flirts with Historically Low Ratings, Draws 1.91M Viewers on Monday

Monday's episode of WWE Raw featuring a build toward the Money in the Bank pay-per-view saw its viewership go down compared to last week. 

According to Mitch Metcalf of Showbuzz Daily, Raw averaged 1.913 million viewers during its three-hour broadcast on USA Network. That was a decrease from last week's 2.118 million.

The show started under 2 million viewers for the first hour (1.994 million) and dropped throughout with an average of 1.913 million viewers for the second hour and 1.832 for the final hour. 

Wrestling Inc.s' Marc Middleton noted this week's show was "also the new third-lowest non-holiday RAW viewership in history."

While last week's Raw was the post-WrestleMania 36 edition, it was a pre-taped show. Monday's Raw was live from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, with no fans in attendance, as WWE was deemed essential business in the state of Florida.

Monday's Raw was largely built around new WWE champion Drew McIntyre, who beat Brock Lesnar for the title at WrestleMania 36.

McIntyre opened the show with a promo only to be interrupted by Zelina Vega and United States champion Andrade. They called back to Andrade previously injuring McIntyre and beating him for the NXT Championship, which set the stage for a Raw main event between them.

Vega's stable of Andrade, Angel Garza and Austin Theory ran roughshod over Raw all night long, but McIntyre managed to beat Andrade with a Claymore Kick even with the whole stable at ringside.

The Scottish Superstar's night didn't end on a high note, though, as Seth Rollins hit McIntyre with multiple Stomps and seemingly signaled that he will be McIntyre's first challenger at next month's Money in the Bank event.

Aside from McIntyre, WWE spent plenty of time building up the women's Money in the Bank ladder match. Asuka beat Ruby Riott, Shayna Baszler beat Sarah Logan, and Nia Jax beat Kairi Sane to qualify for the upcoming bout.

Additionally, Aleister Black and Bobby Lashley won matches in impressive fashion, and The Viking Raiders defeated the team of Ricochet and Cedric Alexander to potentially establish themselves as contenders for The Street Profits' Raw Tag Team Championships.

WWE also spent plenty of time setting up next week's Raw, which will feature three men's Money in the Bank ladder match qualifiers in Rey Mysterio vs. Murphy, Black vs. Theory and Apollo Crews vs. MVP.

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