WWE News: Kurt Angle's revelation boosts RAW ratings
What’s the story?
This week’s edition of Monday Night RAW saw a big increase in viewership that had not been reached since the RAW episode three weeks after WrestleMania 33.
The July 18th edition of RAW averaged 3.153 million viewers, up 144,000 viewers from the post-Great Ball of Fire RAW.
In case you didn’t know...
Hour one of RAW kicked off with Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins teasing a Shield reunion, Alexa Bliss and Bayley facing off in a non-title match, and Mustafa Ali and Jack Gallagher facing The Brian Kendrick and Drew Gulak.
Hour two of RAW featured Finn Bálor and Elias Samson as well as Akira Tozawa taking on Ariya Davari.
The final hour of RAW featured Kurt Angle revealing Jason Jordan as his illegitimate son, as well as the number one contender’s match between Roman Reigns and Samoa Joe.
The heart of the matter
The following is the hourly breakdown for this week’s episode of RAW:
Hour 1: 3.149 Million
Hour 2: 3.237 Million
Hour 3: 3.083 Million
Hour two saw a big increase in viewership with 88,000 fans tuning in with what may have been anticipation for the two big segments.
However, the third hour saw it’s usual massive drop with 154,000 viewers tuning out despite that hour holding the big announcement from Angle and the number one contender’s match for the Universal Championship.
What’s next?
RAW is currently on an upward trend and there’s no way of knowing which direction the ratings will go.
There were three matches announced for RAW, so maybe those matches can give the show the momentum it needs to continue their growth in viewership.
Author’s take
This week’s RAW wasn’t the most exciting show, but they obviously managed to drum up some excitement for the show, thanks to the Kurt Angle secret segment. Hopefully, RAW will make next week’s show something worth remembering.