Raw Rating for John Cena’s return, Money in the Bank fallout, first Raw in front of fans draws one of largest ratings in the last year

WWE Monday Night Raw on USA Network last night drew a 1.46 rating among live and same-night DVR viewers. That’s up from 1.21 last week. The rolling ten-week average heading into this week was 1.21. Raw drew a 1.50 rating the day after WrestleMania earlier this year and also drew a 1.46 on the first episode of the year. Otherwise, the last time it topped a 1.40 rating was the day after Summerslam almost a year ago.

Raw was back in front of live fans in a major arena last night, and also advertised John Cena ahead of time.

Raw was no. 1 on Monday night among all cable shows in the 18-49 demographic with a 0.57 rating, up from last week’s 0.43. It hadn’t drawn above 0.50 since May 10 in that demo. There was also a surge in the male 18-49 demo t0 0.75, up from 0.51 the prior week. The male 18-34 demo was 0.41, up from 0.28 the prior week.

The first-to-third hour dropoff was a mere 100,000 viewers, well below the 149,000 average for the year. The first hour opened 1.967 million viewers, falling short of the 2 million mark for Cena’s return. They last drew over 2 million for an hour of Raw on April 19, and have only topped 2 million in hour one five times this year. The second hour dropped to 1.936 million and the third hour dropped to 1.867 million.

This is the likely the peak rating for a while, as fans sampled the product because of Cena and the return of live fans. The key question is what percentage of fans were happy with last night’s show and drawn to tune in next week to see the fallout from Goldberg’s arrival, Nikki A.S.H.’s MITB win, and the advertised Raw Tag Team Title rematch.