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What's the story?
With two weeks left before the Extreme Rules pay-per-view, Monday Night Raw's viewership managed to rebound from last week's bad numbers. The July 2 episode of Raw averaged 2.707 million viewers - up 66,000 from last week's 2.663 million average.
In case you didn't know...
Raw kicked off with Roman Reigns addressing his concerns with Bobby Lashley and was booked in two tag team matches - one teaming with Seth Rollins against Drew McIntyre & Dolph Ziggler and the other teaming with Lashley against The Revival.
Other memorable parts of the show were Braun Strowman continuing to bully Kevin Owens and the return of Dr. Shelby for the counselling between Sasha Banks and Bayley.
The heart of the matter
The following is the hourly breakdown for the first Raw of July per ShowBuzzDaily:
Hour One: 2.641 million viewers
Hour Two: 2.822 million
Hour Three: 2.658 million
Most of the moments from last week's Raw episode were repeated for this week's show including the tag-team match between Lashley and Reigns vs The Revival. However, these repeated segments didn't have a negative effect on viewership as their overall statistics have managed to surpass the first two hours of last week's broadcast.
The following is the hourly breakdown from the June 25 Raw episode:
Hour one: 2.597 million
Hour two: 2.679 million
Hour three: 2.714 million
What's next?
Most of the matches for Extreme Rules were made official on this episode, so next week's show is more than likely set to focus more on the main storylines for the brand.
The Go-Home shows for pay-per-view generally result in a decrease in viewership, so expect the flagship show to generate a low number for next week. Banks and Bayley's counselling with Dr. Shelby never reached a conclusion, so more skits between the trio should also be expected for the Extreme Rules Go-Home show.
