WWE News: Monday Night Raw Viewership up following The Shield reunion

What’s the story?

This week’s episode of Monday Night Raw averaged 2.871 million viewers and was up almost 100,000 viewers from last week’s show.

In case you didn’t know...

Hour one of Raw kicked off with The Shield reuniting to attack The Miz, Cesaro & Sheamus and Curtis Axel and the first match of the night saw Jason Jordan take on Karl Anderson.

Hour two of Raw featured a first-time match between Braun Strowman and Matt Hardy and was immediately followed up with a beatdown and a Triple Powerbomb from The Shield to Strowman.

The final hour of Raw featured the fatal 5-way to determine Asuka’s opponent at TLC and saw the crowning of a new Cruiserweight Champion after Kalisto defeated Enzo in a Lumberjack match.

The heart of the matter

Raw went up against the Monday Night Football game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears that started fifteen minutes into Raw’s broadcast. The following is the hourly breakdown for the October 9th, 2017 edition of Raw:

Hour One: 3.008 million

Hour Two: 2.894 million

Hour Three: 2.771 million

Raw lost approximately 114,000 viewers heading into hour two and saw a slightly bigger decline with 123,000 fans tuning out as Kalisto became the new Cruiserweight Champion.

Raw’s viewership was also up 119,000 compared to last year’s episode on Oct. 10, 2017.

What’s next?

The Shield reunion seemingly had a huge impact on Raw’s viewership and was considered by many to be the best part of the show.

The decision to have The Shield reunite and stay involved through the first two hours or Raw helped to retain viewership, but the third hour remaining exclusive to the Cruiserweights seems to have caused a greater decline.

Author’s Take

The Shield reunion definitely has fans excited about Raw and their upcoming 6-Man tag team TLC match.

The circumstances for their return could’ve been better, but the fans didn’t seem to mind and were just happy to see one of the WWE’s greatest stables make a comeback.