WWE News: ‘Monday Night Raw’ Draws Lowest Rating In History With ‘Extreme Rules’ Go-Home Show

Ever since WrestleMania back in April, WWE has been facing problems with ratings falling, but that is nothing new for the months leading up to SummerSlam. There have been times when they have risen again, but they usually end up falling again the following week. While WWE hasn’t seemed overly concerned with the ratings lately, they may soon start showing a bit more worry as Monday Night Raw just drew its lowest rating ever.

Opening with a brawl between Bobby Lashley and Roman Reigns, and finishing with a really good match between Drew McIntyre and Seth Rollins, this Raw simply didn’t deliver. Even though it was leading into this weekend’s Extreme Rules pay-per-view, the show could not bring in a good rating whatsoever.

Making matters worse is that it really didn’t have some of the strict competition that it will have later in the year with Monday Night Football.

According to Wrestling Inc., this week’s Raw brought in the lowest viewership in the history of the show as it beat out an episode from September of 2016. That night, the show scored a viewership of 2.478 million viewers, but it was up against MNF and the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

While low ratings during the summer aren’t really anything new, this is something that is uncharted territory for WWE. Not only was this the lowest rating in the history of Monday Night Raw, but it really had no huge competition on other channels and it is leading into a pay-per-view.

Raw came in fourth for the night on cable as it came in behind Hannity, Tucker Carlson Tonight, and The Ingraham Angle. The Bachelorette also gave it a run for its money over on ABC as did Love & Hip-Hop.

Making the numbers even worse is that the viewership became lower as each hour of Monday Night Raw went on. That’s quite the shame as the action turned better as the night went on and the main event of Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre was excellent wrestling.

Below is a breakdown of the viewership per hour and the second number is last week’s Raw:

• First hour – 2.582 million (2.641 million)
• Second hour – 2.508 million (2.822 million)
• Third hour – 2.320 million (2.658 million)

The summer is usually a low time for TV viewership across almost all shows and sports and virtually everything as people just aren’t sitting on the couch as much. For WWE, the summer months are usually lower in ratings, but this is an all-time low for Monday Night Raw and it has to raise some concerns. That is especially true with Extreme Rules taking place this Sunday and it actually has a very good announced card as well.