It would seem the usual January ratings bounce back has finally arrived. That's because the numbers are in for last night's (Jan. 23, 2012) episode of Monday Night Raw and the numbers are up from the past few weeks.
PWTorch.com has the data:
WWE Raw on Monday, January 23 scored a 3.18 rating for the final Royal Rumble PPV hype, up six percent from a 3.01 rating last week.
Raw averaged 4.62 million viewers, up eight percent from an average of 4.29 million viewers last week. Raw did follow the concerning pattern of second hour viewership declining, though, for the 13th week out of the last 14 weeks. Raw averaged 4.67 million first hour viewers, then declined to an average of 4.57 million second hour viewers.
That decline in viewership is especially damning this week considering WWE finally decided to pay off the CM Punk vs. John Laurinaitis physical confrontation tease by having Punk give Laurinaitis the GTS shortly before the show went off the air.
So it wasn't just rushed and short-sighted, it was ultimately not worth it for the short term ratings pop.
Raw last night was the go-home show to the Royal Rumble and featured Chris Jericho stating his intentions for this Sunday night's pay-per-view, Brodus Clay doing his thing with a different color look, Kane breaking Zack Ryder's back and John Cena making his angry face (which is the same as his constipated face).
For complete results and the running live blog for click here and for full reactions to the show click here.