After last week’s episode of Monday Night RAW saw a decrease of 3% in the ratings from the week prior, last night’s episode had the return of Universal Champion Brock Lesnar, as well as Ronda Rousey from her suspension from the red brand. Did this help to increase the show’s audience?

The numbers are in for last night’s edition of RAW and the answer seems to be, “Yes”. With RAW in Miami last night, the ratings saw a 4.25% increase from last week with a rating of 2.901. Here’s a look at the last four weeks of ratings for the red brand:

• July 9th: 2.470
• July 16th: 2.866
• July 23rd: 2.779
• July 30th: 2.901

Another increase for Monday Night RAW this week was seen in the Cable Top 150 Rankings for the 18-49 demographic. Last week, Love & Hip Hop Hollywood occupied the top spot, but that was taken over by the red brand last night:

1. Monday Night RAW (9PM Hour) – USA Network – 1.02
2. Love & Hip Hop Hollywood – VH1 – 0.99
3. Monday Night RAW (10PM Hour) – USA Network – 0.98
4. Monday Night RAW (8PM Hour) – USA Network – 0.96
5. Teen Mom 2 – MTV – 0.75

Source: Showbuzz Daily

EA’s Take: To be fully transparent here, I thought last night’s episode of RAW was brutal to watch and to for the first time in a very long time, it was hard for me to pull out the positives. I mean, it actually felt like a job to watch last night for me. However, that didn’t seem to matter much when it comes to the ratings, which I do feel was helped by the returns of Lesnar and Rousey. It had to be that, right? Hell, that’s what the entire show seemed to be based around, almost as if the writers threw their hands up in the air and said, “*%$# it, we got Ronda and Brock back!”. There was very little competition either, which will change next week. I was a big fan of Breaking Bad and the subsequent spin-off, Better Call Saul, returns next Monday night so I’m pretty interested to see if there’s any kind of impact there.

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