RAW Viewership Spikes A Week Before 25th Anniversary Special

Monday’s episode of WWE RAW from San Antonio, TX averaged 3.250 million viewers, a sharp 17.5% increase from 2.766 million the previous week. This was the first week without direct competition from NFL or college football since August, so RAW definitely benefitted from the less-competitive counter-programming.

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RAW was centered around General Manager Kurt Angle firing Braun Strowman and Strowman raising hell until he got reinstated. The show also featured a competitive match between Asuka and Nia Jax, The Revival in action against local talent, Sasha Banks vs. Sonya Deville and Roman Reigns battling members of the Miztourage.

Here’s the hourly viewership breakdown, courtesy of ShowBuzz Daily:

• Hour 1: 3.573 million viewers
• Hour 2: 3.363 million viewers
• Hour 3: 2.814 million viewers

RAW was the second most-watched show on cable for the night behind the NBA’s Warriors vs Cavaliers game on TNT.

Next week, WWE presents the RAW 25th Anniversary special, which will emanate from both the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY and the Manhattan Center. They’re going all-out with returning legends, so it will be interesting to see what kind of rating they can draw for that show – the final RAW before the Royal Rumble on 1/28.