What’s the story?
As per a report by Cageside Seats, the TV ratings for this week’s episode of Raw showed an upward trend as the show recorded its highest figure for the year 2017 with an average of 3.27 million viewers.
In case you didn’t know…
A thrilling opening segment kick started Raw this week and heightened tensions between the superstars prior to the upcoming Royal Rumble pay-per-view on 29 January. Even as Roman Reigns was making claims about beating Kevin Owens one-on-one at the Rumble and main eventing WrestleMania yet again, Paul Heyman made his way out and announced that his client, Brock Lesnar, would be on the show
‘Best friends’ Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho came out next with their own agenda for the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, followed by Seth Rollins. The crowd got bigger with Braun Strowman entering the ring and facing up to Reigns. Things went off the hook when ‘The Beast Incarnate’ made an entrance and a brawl ensued as Sami Zayn sneaked in to attack Strowman.
While ‘The Big Dog’, Rollins and Zayn combined to take out ‘The Monster Among Men’, Lesnar entered the ring and accounted for all three. He summoned Strowman to the ring but the latter backed out even as Roman delivered a Superman Punch on Brock. ‘The Conqueror’ had the last laugh, though, with an impactful F5 on the former United States Champion.
The heart of the matter
The viewership for Raw witnessed a significant spike from last week’s figures of 2.89 million viewers for a show which featured Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker. At 3.27 million, the latest episode of the WWE’s flagship show also surpassed the 2 January edition which saw Goldberg make an appearance and recorded 3.04 million viewers.
According to the statistics shared by Cageside Seats, the first hour of the show saw maximum viewership at 3.52 million but it declined to 3.07 million in the final hour. This clearly suggests that Brock Lesnar’s brief appearance at the start of Raw this week was what interested viewers the most.
Another major reason behind the red brand’s impressive figures this week is the fact that there was very little competition at hand. In comparison, though, the 9 January episode could not produce the expected numbers despite a star-studded line-up because of the College Football Playoff National Championship game taking place at the same time.
What next?
The two men responsible for pushing the Raw viewership beyond 3 million in separate episodes this year, Goldberg and Brock Lesnar, are both scheduled to appear on the Royal Rumble ‘go home’ show next week. So there may be a distinct possibility of this week’s numbers being surpassed
Sportskeeda’s Take
Although the Raw brand is managing to make up the numbers in terms of their viewership by bringing in some big names on their weekly show, they still need to work a lot on the quality of the wrestling content on display.
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