WWE News: Raw before No Mercy dips in viewership

What’s the story?

The latest episode of Monday Night Raw saw a slight dip in viewership heading into No Mercy with an average of 2.83 million viewers; down 70,000 from last week’s show.

In case you didn’t know...

Hour one of Raw kicked off with a segment involving Kurt Angle, Jason Jordan and The Miztourage and a match between Nia Jax and Raw Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss.

Hour two featured a tag team match between Cesaro & Sheamus, Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows and Raw Tag Team Champions Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins and a pre-taped interview between Braun Strowman and the Universal Champion Brock Lesnar.

The final hour of Raw featured Roman Reigns giving his final thoughts on his upcoming match with John Cena and a six pack challenge to determine the No.1 contender for the Intercontinental Championship.

The heart of the matter

The following is the hourly viewership breakdown of the Sept. 19, 2017 edition of Raw:

Hour One: 3.12 million

Hour Two: 2.84 million

Hour Three: 2.53 million

The second hour of Raw saw the biggest decrease in viewership as 239,000 fans tuned out during the program. The drop in hour three was relatively small with only 300,000 fans not sticking around for the final hour.

What’s next?

The Monday Night Football game between the Detroit Lions and the New York Giants is likely the primary reason for Raw’s dip in viewership with more than 12 million people tuning in to see week 2 of the 2017-2018 NFL season progress.

Raw could see a further decline next week as the Dallas Cowboys take on the Arizona Cardinals, but history shows that post-pay-per-view Raws generally see a boost in viewership.

Author’s Take

WWE has built a WrestleMania level pay-per-view for this Sunday and it’s going to take interesting shows to go up against Monday Night Football.