The combination of post-SummerSlam fallout and curiosity around the first episode with Paul “Triple H” Levesque in charge of creative was enough to draw more viewers back to watch WWE Raw live on Monday, Aug. 1 than at any point in the last two years.
As reported by Variety and a number of news outlets, the most recent Raw drew an average of 2.3 million viewers and scored a 0.6 rating in the crucial 18-49 demographic. Both numbers were up more than 20% over the previous week, and were the highest posted for Raw since 2020.
Dave Meltzer offered additional context in his article for Wrestling Observer:
The show was first in every key demo on cable, doubling everything but Better Call Saul in men 18-49. It also beat every network show in 18-49 except The Bachelorette, including first-run shows on ABC in hour three, NBC in hour one, and Fox all night.
In total viewers, Raw was fifth behind four news shows.
While the first Raw under Levesque didn’t mark a radical departure in terms of content or presentation from when Vince McMahon was in charge, there were a few noticeable differences. Several commercial breaks during matches were taken in a picture-in-picture format, something AEW does regularly but WWE has rarely tried.
The show also featured IYO SKY and Dakota Kai, two performers either rumored to be leaving or already gone from the company, and for whom the feeling around the industry was that they would likely not have returned had McMahon still been running the show. That, plus the elevation of Ciampa thanks to a big victory over AJ Styles, suggested that booking will indeed be a big different going forward.
The obvious question now is how many people who tuned in for this highly anticipated episode will stick around going forward. If even a good chunk of them do, that’s good news for WWE as it fully transitions to life without the all-watching eye of the man who’s guided it for the last four decades.