Raw 20th Anniversary segment ratings for Jan. 14: The good and the bad

There's a certain segment of the pro wrestling fanbase who couldn't care less about television ratings. And while I can understand why that might be the case, we know WWE often makes knee jerk decisions based solely on the numbers they get back from Nielson.

That alone makes them important.

So let's look at the numbers from this past week's episode of Monday Night Raw, featuring the 20th Anniversary of the show:

• There really wasn't anything too notable coming out of this show as far as the quarterly breakdown of each segment. A strong open with Vince McMahon, Big Show, and Alberto Del Rio saw only a minor drop off of 171,000 viewers for Randy Orton vs. Wade Barrett, then a bigger drop off for Kane vs. Damien Sandow and Mick Foley's Hall of Fame induction announcement leading to the big brawl with The Shield, which lost 497,000 viewers.
• The next big gain came at the top of the second hour with a short Ryback interview and Eve Torres' final match in WWE, which gained 509,000 viewers. So at least a lot of people saw Kaitlyn win the Divas title.
• CM Punk vs. Brodus Clay quickly lost 149,000 viewers but gained back 142,000 viewers for his post-match interview and the backstage segment with The Rock, Foley, and Vickie Guerrero.
• Sheamus continues to be a ratings disappointment, as his match with 3MB, along with a John Cena interview, lost 202,000 viewers.
• The highest rated segment on the entire show turned out to be Ric Flair's return on MizTV, which gained 449,000 viewers at the start of the third hour. Unfortunately, they did one of the worst drop offs in a long time for the very next quarter hour with Daniel Bryan vs. Cody Rhodes and AJ and Big E. Langston introducing the weddings video package losing 752,000 viewers. That's a staggering number.
• John Cena vs. Dolph Ziggler in a steel cage match only gained back 118,000 viewers and The Rock concert only gained 207,000 more to close the show. That's not a great overrun and quite the surprise considering we're talking about Rock here in a gimmick that usually works well for him.

There's nothing to panic about here, especially when taking into account the fact that Raw had its highest viewership since the 1,000th episode back in July of last year.

Your thoughts here, Cagesiders?

For complete results and the live blog from Raw click here. For reactions to the show click here. And for a playlist of the entire show click here.