By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

The January 4 "wrestling pie" was larger than the March 8 "wrestling pie" comparing the first two editions of the new Monday Night Wars between WWE Raw and TNA Impact.

The combined quarterly rating from both shows was larger each quarter on Jan. 4 comparable to the same quarter on Mar. 8. However, Jan. 4 was a once-in-a-decade type night for wrestling.

The highest combined rating on Jan. 4 was a 5.58 rating for the once-in-a-lifetime first 15 minutes of WWE Raw and first 15 minutes of TNA Impact's second hour with Bret Hart returning to WWE and Hulk Hogan debuting on TNA.

The highest combined non-over-run rating on Mar. 8 was a 4.59 rating in the sixth quarter-hour from 10:15 to 10:30 p.m. EST. Raw scored a 3.56 rating and Impact scored a 1.03 rating.

Looking at the combined audiences for March 8, Raw and Impact followed usual trends of starting hot, the audience shrinking, then rebuilding near the end of the first hour, peaking at the beginning of the second hour, shrinking again, then a large over-run audience catching the end of both shows.

Q1 - 4.44
Q2 - 4.13 LOW
Q3 - 4.27
Q4 - 4.22
Q5 - 4.46
Q6 - 4.59 HIGH
Q7 - 4.22
Q8 - 4.36
OR - 4.99
AVG: - 4.41 combined rating.

The next interesting comparisons are quarter-to-quarter large drops or gains throughout the show.

The most noticeable is the eighth quarter-hour where TNA lost 20.0 percent of their audience from the seventh quarter-hour and Raw gained 10.1 percent from the previous quarter-hour.

Earlier in the night, Raw lost 3.7 percent of their audience from Q3 to Q4 for the first-half of Legacy vs. Ted DiBiase. Raw then increased 7.6 percent from Q4 to Q5 for the top of the second hour conclusion to the match.

The audience level then increased another 5.0 percent from Q5 to Q6 for a 3.56 rating that was the peak prior to a 3.60 in the eighth quarter-hour.

TNA's ratings were steady throughout the first seven quarter-hours other than a 7.0 percent gain from Q3 to Q4 for the RVD debut and angle with Sting. TNA's 7.0 percent gain coincided with the 3.7 percent drop from Raw.

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