The last WWE Raw before Survivor Series provided some twists this week. The biggest twist saw Triple H make his shocking return to declare himself as Raw’s fifth team member as he Pedigree’d Jason Jordan off the team in front a reluctant Raw GM Kurt angle. In addition to that, there was a main event fight between Braun Strowman and Kane that wasn’t officially a match because the bell never rang, which was odd since they were in the ring with the ref standing there. Anyway, that ended when Strowman gave Kane a Running Powerslam through a conveniently marked spot in the ring that saw the two men go crashing through the ring and to the floor.
There was also a tease of Smackdown performers possibly trying to “invade” Raw like they did a few weeks ago, but that didn’t happen. The Shield set up a Survivor Series match with Smackdown’s The New Day, which should be awesome. Other than that, it was a typical night of Raw that provided WWE with some good news in terms of the ratings.
This week’s Raw drew an audience of 3.031 million viewers for the three hours according to Showbuzz Daily. It’s the first time that Raw has topped 3 million viewers as an average since August 28, which means the first time this fall since NFL’s Monday Night Football started on September 11. This week’s show also beat last week’s 2.841 million number and the impressive 2.953 million viewers from two weeks ago. Clearly, WWE fans were interested in seeing what might happen this week.
Raw was second on the night in cable behind only the NFL’s Monday Night Football game that saw the Carolina Panthers beat the Miami Dolphins on ESPN. That game did 8.76 million viewers, which was 21 percent lower than last week. Clearly, Raw was helped by that.
Here’s how the three hours looked for Raw this week: Hour one was strong with 3.262 million viewers, hour two stayed strong with 3.031 million viewers (that featured Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar) and the third hour was last like usual with 2.769 million viewers, which isn’t as bad as the third hour has been doing. Part of the reason that the third hour was better than usual is because WWE put on that Kurt Angle/Jason Jordan segment that led to Triple H being on the Survivor Series team, the Braun Strowman vs. Kane match and The Shield vs. Miz, Cesaro & Sheamus also started at the top of that third hour, so that helped a lot.
Next week’s Raw takes place one night after Survivor Series. Normally, the ratings go up a bit on a Raw after pay-per-view, so I expect next week’s show to top this week
