Raw Viewership Down This Week, Even With Returns Of Taker And HBK

Last night's episode of WWE Monday Night RAW, featuring advertised appearances by both The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels plus a main event that saw Roman Reigns defend his United States Title in a handicap match against Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho, drew 2.907 million viewers, according to Show Buzz Daily. This is down from the previous episode's 3.046 million viewers for a show that featured the return of Goldberg.

For this week's episode, the first hour drew 3.014 million viewers, the second hour 3.019 million viewers and the final hour saw a precipitous drop-off, drawing just 2.689 million viewers. They had some stiff competition though, in the form of an all time classic College Football Championship game between Alabama and Clemson. The second half of the game was being played during the third hour of Raw.

RAW came in at #7 on cable for the night in viewership, behind the aforementioned college football championship game, three related programs on ESPN, SportsCenter and The O'Reilly Factor. RAW was also #7 in the highly coveted 18-49 demographic, behind the championship game, ESPN programming, SportsCenter and Love & Hip-Hop.