WWE Raw Ratings Drop to 1.896M Viewers After Payback PPV

Viewership was down for Monday's episode of WWE Raw, which featured the fallout from Sunday's WWE Payback.

According to ShowBuzzDaily, the show averaged 1.896 million viewers across the three hours, with a peak of 2.1 million in the first hour. This comes after producing an average of 2.028 million viewers in last week's episode, which had been a boost after several quieter shows.

The Aug. 31 episode was highlighted to be a tournament to determine the No. 1 contender.

Six wrestlers were part of three qualifier matches, which saw Keith Lee defeat Dolph Ziggler, Randy Orton knock off Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins beat Dominik Mysterio. The latter was a rematch from Payback, with Rollins partially avenging his tag team loss alongside Murphy.

It set up an exciting triple-threat match between Lee, Orton and Rollins in the main event, with Orton coming away with a surprising victory after a pin on Rollins:

Though Orton was seemingly overmatched for much of the bout, he came away with the win and will face Drew McIntyre for the WWE title at Clash of Champions.

Monday's show also had a big moment in the women's tag team division as the Riott Squad took on the IIconics in a high-stakes battle. The winner got a shot at the championship, while the loser was forced to disband.

It was the Riott Squad that earned the win, causing Billie Kay and Peyton Royce to split in what became an emotional moment:

The show helped transition from the latest pay-per-view while setting up plenty of big moments ahead.