WWE News: Disturbing Trend in Monday Night RAW Ratings Continues

The ratings for Monday Night RAW fluctuate all the time, usually for different reasons. 

During the summer months, they’re typically down because families are on vacation or out and about when RAW airs, and during the fall and into the early part of winter, RAW’s rating generally suffers because it shares a lot of viewers with Monday Night Football. 

The weeks leading into WrestleMania usually see spikes in ratings, but WWE officials hold out hope that ratings will also increase as we head toward other big pay-per-views, like Survivor Series. 

But that hasn’t been the case this year, and in fact, Monday Night RAW has seen a disturbing trend in its ratings. 

From WrestleNewz.com: 

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WWE RAW Supershow from England did a 2.9 cable rating with just 4,015,000 viewers, down from recent weeks. 

In comparison, last night’s ESPN Monday Night Football game did a 12.32 rating. 

RAW continued a trend this week of losing viewers in the second hour. Hour 1 this week did a 2.94 rating while Hour 2 did a 2.81, around 314,000 viewers less. 

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Needless to say, a 2.9 rating isn’t very good, especially when you realize that The Rock is scheduled to wrestle in his first match in seven years in less than two weeks. I guess you wouldn’t really know it when watching RAW, though, since The Rock is barely mentioned because John Cena is too busy destroying The Miz and R-Truth every week. 

I’m not really surprised that the rating continues to drop in the second half of the show, either. 

RAW opened this week with the same type of Cena promo we see all the time, and the first hour featured squash matches for both Mason Ryan and Alberto Del Rio. Yeah, not exactly must-see TV. 

I’m not sure how or why the WWE expects us to be thrilled about the second hour of RAW when the first one starts the same way it always does (with a promo) and only features one thing worth watching (the match between Dolph Ziggler and John Morrison).

Perhaps the WWE should try opening the show with a good, lengthy match and then start the second hour with an in-ring promo or perhaps, you know, an actual match that is advertised or promoted beforehand and highlights the show’s top feuds. That way, fans will say, “Oh, I have to tune in at the top of second hour to see that.”

But, if we don’t know what’s going on at the top of hour two or if what goes on then is complete crap, it’s going to leave a sour taste in our mouths, and all we’re going to do is change the channel until the overrun.