WWE Raw ratings rebound strongly following Extreme Rules

[Big Red Machine]

Source: www.F4WOnline.com

By Dave Meltzer | @davemeltzerWON | Jul 17, 2018 2:02 pm

Whether it was curiosity coming off the Extreme Rules pay-per-view, or more likely, over Brock Lesnar and the Universal title, Raw rebounded strongly last night to 2.86 million viewers, a 16 percent increase from last week even going up against the Home Run Derby, which traditionally has hurt Raw numbers.

Based on the ratings pattern -- a huge first hour, which is unusual for the summer -- there was something very big that people were interested in. This would either be the curiosity of how the Lesnar Universal title story would play out, or possibly Hulk Hogan. Given that Hogan didn't even make the Google trends list on Sunday or Monday, his return didn't resonate strong enough for it to play out as a factor.

Plus, the big audience drop in the second and third hours showed that whatever people were tuning in to see and find out, happened in hour one. The show led off with Kurt Angle and Paul Heyman talking about the Universal title, setting up Lesnar's defense at SummerSlam on August 19 in Brooklyn's Barclays Center against the winner of next week's Bobby Lashley vs. Roman Reigns match.

WWE needed a big boost and clearly this angle playing out the way it did worked, since Raw had its lowest rated episode in the 25 1/2 year history of the show last week, a 1.72 rating. Going against the Home Run Derby, with nothing special promoted, it would have been expected to do even worse.

Instead, it was one of the better numbers over the last several months, largely due to the big first hour.

The Home Run Derby did 5.57 million viewers, while the celebrity softball game, which followed it on ESPN and featured The Miz, did 2.54 million viewers from 10:30 to 11:30 p.m.

The three hours for Raw were:

8 p.m. 3.12 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.86 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.62 million viewers

[Serujuunin]

If the fan reaction is anything to go by, people just wanted to see Lesnar get stripped of the title.

[cero2k]

If the fan reaction is anything to go by, people just wanted to see Lesnar get stripped of the title.

I think straight expected Lesnar to be there

but yeah, WWE has really killed Lesnar for people to be hoping at this point that he just gets stripped of the title

[Big Red Machine]

I think straight expected Lesnar to be there

This is my guess as well. It will be interesting to see if Brock's next teased appearance doesn't draw as many people because he didn't show up here.

[Bob-O]

I think straight expected Lesnar to be there

This is my guess as well. It will be interesting to see if Brock's next teased appearance doesn't draw as many people because he didn't show up here.

It explains the big drop for the rest of the show... I'd be interested to see the quarter hour for this one...

A little off topic here, but I find the excuses to be tiresome. "Oh, ratings were down because of the NBA Playoffs...", "Well... Monday Night Football always hurts...", now we're making excuses for Home Run Derby!?

Why are they not trying to compete with these things? Remember when TNA went to Monday Nights and Vince "wasn't at all worried about it" but booked himself in the main event? Nothing crazy, but it was something to watch! Why is this not the mentality for everything? Why take the ratings hit when freaking BASEBALL is on when you have all the tools to take it to them? Are we going to blame NASCAR next for tiring the fans out before Pay Per Views??? Is it too much effort to put a must see show together?

It always gives me goosebumps when I hear in interviews how World Class used to crush Saturday Night Live in their local market, or the few times Raw beat Monday Night Football.

WWE has always had this Big Picture/Write Your Finish First booking style that they never ever waver from... they might drag it out to get there (Roman), or look completely lost when they do stray from the plan (Daniel Bryan), but nothing will ever detour them from their route.

I feel like now more than ever they should be booking things a show at a time. They rule the wrestling world! So why not try to go head to head with whatever else is going on that night? Acknowledge it! Call them out! Be prepared to go to war to bring in those casual fans! They've become so complacent...

[cero2k]

It explains the big drop for the rest of the show... I'd be interested to see the quarter hour for this one...

A little off topic here, but I find the excuses to be tiresome. "Oh, ratings were down because of the NBA Playoffs...", "Well... Monday Night Football always hurts...", now we're making excuses for Home Run Derby!?

Why are they not trying to compete with these things? Remember when TNA went to Monday Nights and Vince "wasn't at all worried about it" but booked himself in the main event? Nothing crazy, but it was something to watch! Why is this not the mentality for everything? Why take the ratings hit when freaking BASEBALL is on when you have all the tools to take it to them? Are we going to blame NASCAR next for tiring the fans out before Pay Per Views??? Is it too much effort to put a must see show together?

It always gives me goosebumps when I hear in interviews how World Class used to crush Saturday Night Live in their local market, or the few times Raw beat Monday Night Football.

WWE has always had this Big Picture/Write Your Finish First booking style that they never ever waver from... they might drag it out to get there (Roman), or look completely lost when they do stray from the plan (Daniel Bryan), but nothing will ever detour them from their route.

I feel like now more than ever they should be booking things a show at a time. They rule the wrestling world! So why not try to go head to head with whatever else is going on that night? Acknowledge it! Call them out! Be prepared to go to war to bring in those casual fans! They've become so complacent...

It is really a huge defeatist mentality, they need to teach their fans that no matter what other thing is on another channel, WWE is the place to be. for the longest time this has been the reason why a lot of people watch RAW, the 'just in case something big happens' that kinda started with things like The Nexus invasion if not long before, but now they just kinda tell you, if there is something big on tv, we won't do it or just have it during the top of the hour so you can watch it and then change the channel

[Big Red Machine]

I think straight expected Lesnar to be there

This is my guess as well. It will be interesting to see if Brock's next teased appearance doesn't draw as many people because he didn't show up here.

It explains the big drop for the rest of the show... I'd be interested to see the quarter hour for this one...

A little off topic here, but I find the excuses to be tiresome. "Oh, ratings were down because of the NBA Playoffs...", "Well... Monday Night Football always hurts...", now we're making excuses for Home Run Derby!?

Why are they not trying to compete with these things? Remember when TNA went to Monday Nights and Vince "wasn't at all worried about it" but booked himself in the main event? Nothing crazy, but it was something to watch! Why is this not the mentality for everything? Why take the ratings hit when freaking BASEBALL is on when you have all the tools to take it to them? Are we going to blame NASCAR next for tiring the fans out before Pay Per Views??? Is it too much effort to put a must see show together?

It always gives me goosebumps when I hear in interviews how World Class used to crush Saturday Night Live in their local market, or the few times Raw beat Monday Night Football.

WWE has always had this Big Picture/Write Your Finish First booking style that they never ever waver from... they might drag it out to get there (Roman), or look completely lost when they do stray from the plan (Daniel Bryan), but nothing will ever detour them from their route.

I feel like now more than ever they should be booking things a show at a time. They rule the wrestling world! So why not try to go head to head with whatever else is going on that night? Acknowledge it! Call them out! Be prepared to go to war to bring in those casual fans! They've become so complacent...

I agree with everything until the last two paragraphs. You pretty much have to book your finish first. How are you going to write a story if you don't know what the ending is going to be? (Or, if the story is continuing, how can you write a chapter if you don't know what the cliffhanger ending is going to be?). You figure out what your PPV card is going to be, including both the finishes and your two-sentence hook for each match, and then you take each match and say "I have X weeks to tell the story that is summarized in the hook."
This works in both the short term and the long term. To use a self-horn-tooting example:
In my on-going WWE Raw 1,000 and Beyond fantasy booking thread, I had brought Roman Reigns up from NXT as a heel who was focused on winning a championship to the exclusion of all else. He wasn't a guy who would go out of his way to cheat, but he had no problem taking advantage of other's cheating on his behalf. After failing in several title shots, I had The Miz- who has won many championships in his illustrious career- offer to be his mentor, which Roman accepted. Alberto Del Rio soon joined the group as well, and the dynamic became them as a heel unit but the other two- and particularly Miz- would occasionally take advantage of Roman and Roman would get annoyed but would be swayed by Miz essentially telling him that it was paying his dues in exchange for veteran advice and help in matches.
This was all done to set up Roman eventually turning babyface and standing up to Miz and then winning a championship on his own without any heel help. When I decided I wanted Roman's win to be at the September PPV Night of Champions 2014 (both because it's thematic and because Roman would always talk about having "the heart of a champion") it was early May or so. I then figured out what the key points that needed to happen to build up to this were:

1. Escalate things between Miz & Roman
2. Turn Roman babyface on Miz
3. Roman beats Miz in a big match to put that issue to bed before refocusing Roman on the IC Title come Night of Champions.
4. And while doing all of this, build up the idea of Roman as contender for the IC Title specifically

I realized that #3 worked best as a PPV match at the PPV before Night of Champions, which also happened to be SummerSlam, making it a perfect place for blow-off and a big step forward moment for Roman, so that meant that I had three months to do everything else. I also realized that the best way to accomplish #4 in a way that leads up to #3 is to have Miz cost Roman an IC Title match, so I figured that match would be at the July PPV. In order to do that Roman had to earn a title shot, and the best way to accomplish #2 while having Roman earn a title shot (and thus setting up for Miz costing Roman the title) was to use a #1 contendership tournament to bring them into direct conflict over the title. And to get them to a place where they would actually come to blows over it first required #1 in order to build anticipation for Roman's babyface turn rather than just taking a background issue and having it jump from a 3 to a 9 overnight.

I also realized that Roman's babyface turn had to feel like Roman was taking some real moral step; it couldn't just be him fighting Miz because they were booked against each other in the finals. This meant that Roman had to be given as little time to think as possible so he would be in a real pressure-cooker situation, and in order to do that without doing a one-night tournament it meant that a bait-and-switch was needed in the finals... which mean that I needed someone else to win and then not be able to compere, as well as a logical reason for Roman to be the replacement, which meant that I needed a type of tournament where Roman could look strong and come in an undisputed second place in his bracket, which meant the tournament needed to be a round-robin.
And the reason the guy who actually won Roman's bracket wouldn't be able to compete would be because he was attacked by Miz before the finals. Miz would think he was going to be awarded the win in the finals by forfeit if no one could prove he did it (so he wore a mask for the attack, which would take place in a parking lot after the house show the night before), which would set the stage for the bombshell being dropped and Steph telling Miz that he wasn't going to be allowed to win a title shot by forfeit and instead would have to compete against the runner up from the other block- i.e. Roman. Miz would be angry about this and order Roman to lie down for him, but Roman would refuse (your big moral babyface turn moment) and insist on fighting Miz and win cleanly.

I used May to get the pieces in place for an angle to ramp up the issues between Miz and Roman and show that Roman was really getting fed up now, pulled the trigger on that first angle on the June 1 PPV, spent June building up Roman and Miz not getting along, then in July used for the Round Robin IC Title #1 contendership tournament to create a situation that would eventually put Miz and Roman into direct conflict in the finals, where I gave Roman his big moment of finally standing up to Miz (which works well on TV for maximum exposure), resulting in Roman beating Miz to become #1 contender to the IC Title for the July PPV, where Miz cost him the title leading up to SummerSlam where Roman vanquished Miz to signify his new start, and then Night of Champions where he completes his journey and wins the title.

I'm not typing all of this to be patronizing or to tout my own genius*, but rather to illustrate why you need to know where your story is going before you start writing the first chapter in order to tell the story better. If you're just booking show to show, you'll almost never get something with more than one dimension to it. It's the difference between a three-way feud that is just four months of A vs. B vs. C with random stips added in, or a three-way feud that starts out with a Triple Threat in which A pins B, then C says "well you didn't beat me so I want a match against you" and C beats A at PPV 2 while B is off getting a win so that B can then say "C, you never pinned me, that was A who pinned me" so you have B beat C at PPV 3 while A is off getting a win, then you blow it off on the fourth PPV with an elimination match to settle things once and for all.

I also think that working ahead and working backwards is advantageous to ensuring that your stories don't feel isolated from each other. For example, when I realized I needed to do a round-robin, that meant I needed a whole bunch of other competitors and people would have to take more than just one loss in the tournament, so I had to figure out who I had available to be in the tournament and what ramifications the results of their matches in the tournament would have. I really didn't have anything going with the US Title at the time and Evan Bourne was my champion so I had him do poorly in the tournament to set up some title defenses for him. Compare this to current WWE, where the title feud in the women's division on each show almost never interacts with the other feud the division has going on.


*though if you'd like me to illustrate how some of the things in this feud wove together with various other storylines I had going, I'd be more than happy to do so

[Big Red Machine]

It is really a huge defeatist mentality, they need to teach their fans that no matter what other thing is on another channel, WWE is the place to be. for the longest time this has been the reason why a lot of people watch RAW, the 'just in case something big happens' that kinda started with things like The Nexus invasion if not long before, but now they just kinda tell you, if there is something big on tv, we won't do it or just have it during the top of the hour so you can watch it and then change the channel

I don't get it, either. It seems to me that you should basically ignore everything else that is on that night and make the people who chose to watch something else sorry that they didn't choose to watch your show.

Plus, we live in a world of DVRs, so it's not like people are going to miss some big change to the status quo if they don't watch it live. But if they hear that your show wans't worth watching, then they'll just delete it form the DVR without ever watching it.

[Serujuunin]

It is really a huge defeatist mentality, they need to teach their fans that no matter what other thing is on another channel, WWE is the place to be. for the longest time this has been the reason why a lot of people watch RAW, the 'just in case something big happens' that kinda started with things like The Nexus invasion if not long before, but now they just kinda tell you, if there is something big on tv, we won't do it or just have it during the top of the hour so you can watch it and then change the channel

I don't get it, either. It seems to me that you should basically ignore everything else that is on that night and make the people who chose to watch something else sorry that they didn't choose to watch your show.

Plus, we live in a world of DVRs, so it's not like people are going to miss some big change to the status quo if they don't watch it live. But if they hear that your show wans't worth watching, then they'll just delete it form the DVR without ever watching it.

I exclusively watch RAW and Smackdown on DVR. I can’t stand watching it live anymore because I can’t fast forward all the hot garbage segments they’re trying to force feed me and call it entertainment.

[Bob-O]

... and commercials haha!

I remember you can't do commercials...

[Big Red Machine]

... and commercials haha!

This is more it for me. Skipping the commercials means cutting a good 50 minutes or so out of Raw.