Ratings for World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) flagship program, Monday Night Raw, may not be nearly as important as they once were but it's never a good sign when the lead-in show to a pay-per-view event registers the second lowest number of the year.

Such was the case with his past Monday night's (May 14, 2012) episode of Raw, which pulled a 2.9 rating and an average of 4.21 million viewers for the two hour broadcast on USA.

The first hour of the show, which featured Triple H's big opening segment with Paul Heyman and a tag match between CM Punk and Santino Marella vs. Cody Rhodes and Daniel Bryan, averaged 4.09 million viewers while the second hour, which saw John Laurinaitis heavily featured in firing Big Show and getting run down by John Cena, averaged 4.32 million viewers.

We could bring up the stiff competition from the NBA Playoffs, and that would be fair seeing as the Los Angeles Lakers played the Oklahoma City Thunder, but we know the reality of the situation. Raw is generally a mediocre to poor show that is so firmly entrenched in its timeslot with its fanbase that, barring a catastrophic change, will continue to pull around four million viewers on average every week, no matter what.

For complete results and the running live blog from Raw click here, for complete reactions to the show click here, and to listen to Sergio and myself gab about the show on the Cageside Live podcast click here.