WWE News: Raw after WrestleMania becomes second Highest Viewed Show of 2018

What's the story?

Raw after WrestleMania always brings in a big crowd for ratings and the post-WrestleMania episode didn't disappoint.

The Raw after WrestleMania 34 averaged 3.921 million viewers - up 536,000 viewers from last week's average of 3.358 million.

In case you didn't know

This week's show featured Ronda Rousey locking the armbar on Stephanie McMahon, the retirement of Raw Women's superstar Paige, four NXT call-ups, and the returns of Jeff Hardy, Samoa Joe and Bobby Lashley.

The biggest matches on the program were Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson versus The Revival, The Authors of Pain versus Heath Slater & Rhyno, Bray Wyatt & Matt Hardy versus Titus Worldwide and Kevin Owens versus Sami Zayn with a Raw contract on the line.

The heart of the matter

The following is the hourly breakdown for the April 9 edition of Raw per ShowBuzzDaily:

Hour one: 4.098 million

Hour two: 4.069 million

Hour three: 3.597 million

Raw dominated cable once again, but the viewership jump is even more remarkable considering the numbers from the post-WrestleMania 33 show.

The Raw after WrestleMania 34 was up 154,000 viewers from the Raw after WrestleMania 33 which averaged 3.767 million.

Despite some fans having mixed opinions about WrestleMania 34, the viewership has only gotten stronger and has improved greatly from 2017.

Were it not for the 25th Anniversary of Raw, this would be the highest viewed episode of the year thus far.

What's next?

With WrestleMania 34 in the rear view, WWE can focus their full attention on the Greatest Royal Rumble that will take place later this month.

Viewership typically decreases after the post-Mania shows and its highly unlikely that Raw will maintain the viewers from this week's show.

Author's take

This was a fun episode of Monday Night Raw and hopefully, WWE can maintain that momentum for the remainder of the year.