After last week’s post-Extreme Rules edition of Monday Night RAW saw a big increase in the ratings, the numbers are in for last night’s episode of the red brand and while there was a slight decrease in viewership, the show stayed highly ranked.

With the big announcement made by Stephanie McMahon of the WWE’s first all-women’s pay-per-view, Evolution, plus a main event that would determine Brock Lesnar’s challenger at SummerSlam, Monday Night RAW came in with a 2.779, a 3% decrease from last week’s 2.866. Here’s the last four weeks of ratings for the red brand:

• July 2nd: 2.707
• July 9th: 2.470
• July 16th: 2.866
• July 23rd: 2.779

As for the Top 150 Cable Rankings, RAW ranked at numbers two, three and four in the 18-49 demographic with the newest season of Love & Hip Hop ranking at number one yet again:

1. Love & Hip Hop Hollywood – VH1 – 1.05
2. Monday Night RAW (9PM Hour) – USA Network – 0.93
3. Monday Night RAW (10PM Hour) – USA Network – 0.93
4. Monday Night RAW (8PM Hour) – USA Network – 0.91
5. Great White Abyss – Discovery – 0.82

Source: Showbuzz Daily

EA’s Take: I’ll never understand why Love & Hip Hop continually comes in at number one, no matter what it’s beating out in the rankings, but I digress. What I find most interesting this week is how the 8:00 hour comes in behind 9:00 and 10:00 for RAW. Stephanie’s announcement was promoted to death ahead of time and we all had a pretty strong indication of what it was going to be, so is this an indictment on women’s wrestling? I’d say likely not. It’s a little hard for anyone reading this to believe, but the amount of people who are tuned into the backstage ongoings/rumors/speculation and such is far less than the casuals who tune into RAW. I think that is illustrated here. Plus, you had a main event featuring the top guy of the red brand (don’t @ me, Roman is RAW’s top guy) with SummerSlam implications that had been promoted for a full week. Also, I’m tired of people telling me that Ronda Rousey appearances or absences is the reason for RAW’s ratings increasing or decreasing. It doesn’t work that way anymore. She may draw multiple millions of YouTube views, but nobody is tuning into RAW specifically for her. How do I know this? Look at last week’s show, where the hour her segment was in drew less of a rating than the other two. STOP TREATING RATINGS LIKE IT’S THE ATTITUDE ERA!

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