RAW Ratings Tank; Where Do They go From Here?
The WWE suffered a huge blow this past week in the RAW ratings, a number so low that you almost have to think that either A: there was a mixup somehow and the numbers were off, or B: the product that the WWE is currently throwing out is so bad, and of course there is still backlash over the Chris Benoit tragedy, that people are just not interested. I would say that based on the storylines and the negative pub that has been generated from Benoit, its more the latter than the first, and that is not good for wrestling long term.
The rating was a 2.5, which is down from a 3.4 a week ago. It's a drop of 26% from last week, and the lowest rating the show has gotten since October 27th, 1997 which on that night was 2.3. The other scary thing about the 10/27/97 show was it was taped, and if you wanted to you could skip the show and simply read the spoilers on-line. Here Monday night was live, and had a decent amount of build with Jerry Lawler vs King Booker.
I had a feeling that the Benoit thing would hurt the WWE for quite awhile. There is no way that anything truly good could come of all the things that took place at the Benoit home the last weekend of June. The in-ring product does seem a bit stale right now, but not to the point where the ratings should be dropping as high as they have been. John Cena is still a draw, the return of HHH and the Rey Mysterio should mean a bit of a boost, but so far, the numbers just don't translate.
So what will happen? Well, the company will likely try some hotshot angle soon, as that is the usual thing they do when the ratings drop. Then as they start to stablize again, the numbers hopefully will start to go back up a bit. But right now, tensions are high, and as the ratings continue to be low, things are going to be tight backstage for quite some time.
