WWE News: Monday Night Raw Viewership increases despite no Undertaker apperance
What's the story?
Two weeks away from WrestleMania 34 and Monday Night Raw's viewership continues to maintain its viewership heading into the big event in April.
The March 27 edition of Raw averaged 3.367 million viewers and was down 40,000 from last week's average of 3.327 million.
In case you didn't know
Raw kicked off with another brutal segment between Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar building to their match at WrestleMania 34.
The show also featured an appearance from Ronda Rousey, a backstage brawl between Sasha Banks and Bayley and a MizTV segment.
The biggest matches on the show were Mickie James vs. Nia Jax, Braun Strowman vs. Sheamus and John Cena vs. Kane in the main event.
The heart of the matter
The following is the hourly breakdown of the final Raw of March 2018 per ShowBuzzDaily:
Hour 1: 3.403 million
Hour 2: 3.547 million
Hour 3: 3.150 million
The second hour gained 144,000 fans from the start of the show, but the third hour saw the expected dip in viewership with a loss of 397,000.
Though there were no advertisements suggesting The Undertaker would show up, the expectation from many was that The Phenom would send some type of message to agree to the match between himself and Cena for WrestleMania 34.
Cena vs. Kane was booked for the final hour of Raw, and held a stronger third hour than last week's show - up 74,000 viewers from last week's third hour which generated 3.150 million viewers.
The first hour started off with lower viewership than the previous week, but Reigns and Lesnar kicking off the show may have drove increased viewership in the second hour.
What's next?
Next week marks the final Raw before WrestleMania 34 and will be the last chance for WrestleMania matches to be announced barring any entrants in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
Aside from Cena's match, there is no other match fans are waiting for the company to announce.
Author's take
WWE is maintaining stronger viewership for their Raw episodes compared to their 2017 shows.
The Road to WrestleMania 34 has maintained the attention of the fans and could mean the excitement around this show is far greater than it was for WrestleMania 33.