There was bound to be some drop off from the historic 1,000th episode of Monday Night Raw to episode 1,001 but overall, WWE should be pleased that the numbers held up as well as they did, especially considering the competition.

Last night's (July 30, 2012) edition of Raw garnered a 3.08 rating for an average of 4.49 million viewers throughout the three hour show. That breaks down to a 2.79 rating and 4.06 million viewers in the first hour, 3.21 rating and 4.72 ratings in the second hour, and 3.25 rating and 4.70 million viewers in the third.

That's pretty damn good when you factor in the Olympics, which drew something like 30 million viewers. It's crucial that Raw establishes itself with this new three hour timeslot considering the fact that we're just over one month away from the return of Monday Night Football to drag away some of its audience.

WWE has to be hoping they can keep those four million viewers in hour one and keep them around to the end of the show. Raw will have the jump on football games because they don't start until 8:30 p.m. ET, so if they can provide a compelling product instead of endless recaps, they should be just fine.

For complete results and the running live blog from this past week's episode of Raw click here. To listen to Sergio and myself gab about the show on the Cageside Live podcast click here. And for complete reactions to all the night's events click here.