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What's the story?
The WWE's flagship show has struggled since WrestleMania season, with Raw having a hard time breaking 3 million viewers each week. With a lot of competition last night, including a Monday Night Football game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Raw drew its worst rating in the program's history.
In case you didn't know...
Between January and April, Monday Night Raw scored pretty well each week, averaging about 3.5 million viewers per show. However, since then, Raw has had a hard time breaking through that ceiling. In fact, since May 7th, the post Backlash show, Raw has only broken 3 million once.
On August 20th, the Raw after SummerSlam drew 3.1 million viewers, likely a result of the Universal Championship situation.
This week's edition of Monday Night Raw featured a title match for the Raw Tag Team Championship, a six-man tag match involving the Shield, and a six-woman tag match, pitting the Bella Twins and Natalya against the Riott Squad. Sadly, none of that seemed to tear any eyes away from the rest of the Monday night lineup.
The heart of the matter
Monday Night Raw drew its lowest rating in the show's history on September 24th, drawing 2.35 million viewers over its three-hour time slot.
Hour 1- 2.49 million
Hour 2- 2.23 million
Hour 3- 2.28 million
Overall, Raw is down 12% from last week's show, which drew 2.67 post Hell in a Cell.
What's next?
While a surprise appearance by Brock Lesnar at Hell in a Cell helped keep ratings up last week, there wasn't much going on this week in terms of surprises. While The Revival and Drew McIntyre & Dolph Ziggler put on a great match, it was obvious that they would pick up the win. Regardless of the story, a predictable show will have a hard time drawing a large audience, especially one that lasts three hours.
With WWE Super Show-Down taking place next Saturday, the WWE will look to pull out all the stops next week.
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