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What’s the story?
A big WrestleMania match announcement and brawl kicked off Monday Night Raw, but the rest of the show wasn’t able to maintain the audience’s attention.
The March 5th edition of Raw averaged 3.099 million viewers and was down 81,000 from last week’s show.
In case you didn’t know...
The announcement of the WrestleMania mixed tag team match featuring Kurt Angle and Ronda Rousey against Triple H and Stephanie McMahon started the flagship show and was one of the most important segments on the program alongside Roman Reigns confronting Paul Heyman.
The most important matches on the show were Asuka versus Nia Jax, The Bar versus The Revival and Braun Strowman versus Elias in a Symphony of Destruction Match.
The heart of the matter
The following is the hourly breakdown for the March 5 episode of Raw according to ShowBuzzDaily:
Hour 1: 3.302 million
Hour 2: 3.267 million
Hour 3: 2.729 million
Raw maintained its dominance in the cable ratings, but the viewership continues to suffer following lackluster matches and seemingly unconvincing buildup to WrestleMania 34.
The transition into the second hour represented a minimal loss of viewers - 35,000. The biggest drop occurred in the third hour as 538,000 fans turned away as Raw headed towards Paul Heyman and Roman Reigns confrontation.
Rousey’s segment with Triple H and McMahon ended last week’s show and earned a viewership of 2.884 million – up 155,000 viewers from the third hour on March 5.
What’s next?
Lesnar is advertised to appear on Raw next week and was promised to appear by Heyman, which means that Reigns and Lesnar will most likely have their first confrontation since Reigns became the No. 1 Contender for the Universal Championship.
Their initial singles match in 2015 suffered from a weak buildup and a lack of physicality, so fans will likely expect a brawl to ensue when the champion and the challenger are in the same ring.
Author’s Take
The Road to WrestleMania is being paved with mediocre television and an occasional entertainment segment.
Hopefully, next week is an improvement on this week's show.
