Raw ratings were delayed a day this week thanks to the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday here in the United States, so we had to wait until Wednesday to find out if Brock Lesnar’s return could help WWE build on the 2.89 million who tuned in on Jan. 9 to see Undertaker & HBK while the college football national title game was happening.
Turns out that Brock + limited competition = a nice boost. The Jan. 16 Raw gave WWE their best numbers of the young year at 3.27 million viewers.
That’s the good news. The less-good news is that almost half a million people tuned out between the time Lesnar left the building and when the six-man main event his segment set-up between Kevin Owens, Chris Jericho & Braun Strowman and Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns & Sami Zayn finally took place.
Hour one: 3.52 million
Hour two: 3.22 million
Hour three: 3.07 million
Maybe they all wanted to see how WWE addressed the death of Jimmy Snuka.
It’s a nice overall number on the Road to WrestleMania, but given the lack of competition - the NBA won the night on cable with a Finals rematch between LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors that drew less than 5 million - the drops may raise some eyebrows.
Goldberg is back next week for the Royal Rumble ‘go home’, and it’s not a national holiday, so WWE will be hoping to grow from here. We’ll see.
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