WWE News: Raw viewership increases with Roman Reigns' return

What's the Story?

WWE Superstar Roman Reigns returned to Monday Night Raw this week, leading the program to its highest viewed episode since last summer.

Raw averaged 2.92 million viewers, which was up 151,000 from last week's average of 2.77 million.

In Case You Didn't Know...

Reigns announced that his cancer was in remission and that he would be returning to the ring at the start of Raw, before the tag team match between Ricochet & Aleister Black against The Revival.

The other big moments from the show were Becky Lynch being arrested, Seth Rollins & Reigns coming to Dean Ambrose's aid ,and the return of Dave Batista.

The Heart of the Matter

The following is the hourly breakdown of the Feb. 25 episode of Raw per ShowBuzzDaily:

Hour one: 3.167 million

Hour two: 2.952 million

Hour three: 2.648 million

Last week's episode of Raw got a post-PPV viewership increase that brought the program to their highest rated episode in September, but this week's show had the highest viewership since August.

Raw dominated Monday night cable with over three million viewers tuning in at the start of the show - the highest viewed first hour since April 23, 2018, the go-home show for the Greatest Royal Rumble.

The show lost over 500,000 viewers by the end of third hour, but the viewership for the final hour was higher than any episode since September.

The February 25 edition of Raw received lower viewership than last year's episode on Feb. 26, 2018 which averaged 3.18 million for the Raw after the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view.

What's Next?

The upcoming episode of Raw will be the first for the month of March and will serve as the go-home show for Fastlane.

Ratings usually decrease the week before a pay-per-view, so WWE will likely lose most of their viewers this week, only to regain them for the Raw after Fastlane.