WWE RAW viewership down from last week amidst fierce competition from the NFL

Viewership for this week's episode of Monday Night RAW (October 17th) saw a slight dip compared to last week. 1.803 million viewers tuned in on average across its 3 hours of broadcast.

With the show facing fierce competition from the NFL on Monday night, viewership has dropped the sub-2 million mark over the past 5 weeks. This week's viewership is the second highest in a 5-week span, having only been beaten by the 1.824 million viewers last week.

The rating for the key demographic of 18-49-year-olds was also down this week, with it going from 0.55 to 0.50 in a week.

It should be noted that last week's boost in viewership and demo ratings can partly be attributed to an advertised appearance by Bray Wyatt. The Eater of Worlds returned to WWE after over a year at Extreme Rules the night before. The live appearance did not happen, Wyatt instead appeared on SmackDown to cut an impassioned promo.

Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics tweeted out the viewership metrics for this week's episode of RAW. He reports that this week's episode of the Red Brand was still in the top 5 cable shows of the night for the 18-49 demographic.

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Stars returned, a massive upset, and the US title defended on this week's WWE RAW

This week's episode of WWE RAW did a lot of things across its three-hour span, and most of them are right.

The show opened with a pull-apart brawl between Bobby Lashley and Brock Lesnar, with The All Mighty putting The Beast Incarnate through the announcer's table. A match between the two at Crown Jewel on November 5th was then made official.

The first match of the night was The OC's (Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson) first match since returning last week, with the duo beating Alpha Academy. The Judgment Day then confronted A.J. Styles and The OC, making a six-man tag match official for Crown Jewel (a lot of build-up for the show in Riyadh).

A solid promo by the United States Champion Seth Rollins was interrupted by Mustafa Ali, who challenged for the title later in the night. This was followed by Damage CTRL picking up a win against Candice LeRae and Bianca Belair.

Next came Hall of Famer JBL, who will now manage Baron Corbin. Corbin then beat Dolph Ziggler in a match. Then came a backstage segment of The Miz, and one for Omos and MVP.

For the surprise of the night, Dominik Mysterio beat A.J. Styles in a singles match with the help of his stablemates.

Dexter Lumis and The Miz's story moved forward as the latter attacked the former before they could have a match. Johnny Gargano then threatened the A-Lister, teasing to reveal a secret on next week's RAW.

Elias returned and reintroduced himself to the WWE Universe, and was interrupted by Matt Riddle. Then came the main event of the night, the U.S. title match between Rollins and Riddle. The back-and-forth bout ended when Elias caused a distraction, leading to Riddle losing the match.

Mustafa Ali then walked out to make the U.S. title scene a four-man story.