WWE Raw did not perform well throughout the year 2018 when it comes to TV ratings. We have felt the same even at a time when the Road to Wrestlemania season was going on. This was an indication of poor performances for the rest of months to follow. WWE brought back legendary names in the fall of the year that failed to pull on the ratings to a significant extent.
Huge announcements for next episode of WWE Raw
The fall of ratings reached the lowest during buildups of WWE TLC. The absence of Roman Reigns worked as a huge factor behind this. Even if the McMahons returned to deliver something fresh, the dip-down tradition continued in the month of December. It set a new record on the December 24th episode. However, the good news is that WWE Raw made a comeback on the very last edition of 2018.
WWE hosted a taped edition of the flagship show on January 31st of 2018 that was the last TV event of the year. For the second week in a row, we have received WWE Raw in a non-live format. Despite that, it bounced back in comparison to the Christmas Eve edition. Two huge main events alongside some fresh matchups might have worked as a positive factor behind the same.
WWE Raw opened with a solid steel cage match between Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler. It witnessed the presence of Triple H and Shane McMahon on the show who set up some fresh matchups. Dean Ambrose defended the Intercontinental Championship against Apollo Crews. Seth Rollins destroyed Bobby Lashley after the match got disqualified. Lastly, Ronda Rousey teamed up with Natalya to defeat Nia Jax and Tamina in the final match of the night.
Apparently, the viewership was up 193000 from last week courtesy of these matches. Here’s more on this from SportsKeeda.com,
“Raw averaged 1.97 million viewers for the December 31 edition of the program and was up 193,000 from last week’s Christmas Eve episode, which averaged 1.78 million viewers.
Hour one: 2.035 million Hour two: 2.026 million Hour three: 1.843 million.”
However, this does not project the bright side of WWE Raw programming. The Christmas edition of 2017 witnessed a much higher viewership that had the count of 2.706 million. Also, the last time WWE Raw was aired on New Year’s Eve was in 2012. It garnered 3.56 million viewers which were more than 1.5 million viewers from this week’s episode.