Reigns' return, Flair party draw best WWE Raw ratings in six months

[Big Red Machine]

Source: www.F4WOnline.com

By Dave Meltzer | @davemeltzerWON | Feb 26, 2019 2:02 pm


The return of Roman Reigns, as well as the Ric Flair 70th birthday party, led Raw to its best ratings in six months last night.

Raw averaged 2.92 million viewers this week, up five percent from the February 18 post-Elimination Chamber episode, which had been the highest rated Raw in more than five months.

The 3.17 million viewers in he first hour for Reigns was the most-watched first hour of the show since April 23.

Overall, it was the most-watched episode of the show since August 20.

Raw was third for the night on cable, and barely missed being number one, with the top spot of 2.96 million being for Tucker Carlson on Fox News and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. The first hour even beat FOX network programming, losing only to ABC, CBS and NBC.

Raw still had the big drops, particularly in hour three, but given the nature of the show, where the key was the Reigns announcement that would bring in an audience that usually isn't watching, the drops in hour two and three were expected and would have likely been even more pronounced without the show-long build to the Flair birthday segment. It saw stars of the past return and ended with an angle involving Batista attacking Flair to set up his WrestleMania match with Triple H.

The three hours were:

8 p.m. 3.17 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.95 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.65 million viewers