Just two weeks after the draft, hour three of Raw struggled to stay above 3 million viewers.
The August 1 episode of Monday Night RAW, which featured Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman's return drew 3.314 million viewers. This is slightly down from last week's post-Draft show and Battleground fallout, which drew 3.338 million viewers, but barely a noticeable difference. The show also featured further buildup for SummerSlam with the new RAW roster.
For this week's show, the first hour, which opened with a segment that had Enzo Amore, Sasha Banks, Charlotte and Chris Jericho talk in the ring that eventually led to a mixed tag team match, drew 3.463 million viewers. The second hour drew 3.399 million viewers and the final hour drew 3.081 million viewers. The show ended with Lesnar and Heyman in the ring while Randy Orton, who is a SmackDown-exclusive superstar, showed up and hit an RKO to Lesnar to end the broadcast.
The show also had Sami Zayn square off against Seth Rollins and a United States Championship match between Rusev and Mark Henry.
RAW was #4 on cable for the night in viewership, behind Major Crimes, The O'Reilly Factor and Rizzoli & Isles. In the 18-49 demographic, RAW was #2, behind Love & Hip-Hop.
Source: TV By The Numbers
