Brock Lesnar Had The Lowest-Rated Segment In WWE Raw History

WWE has been fighting an uphill battle in its attempt to generate interest in Raw and SmackDown, and as it turns out, it’s a losing battle, too.

Last week’s episode of SmackDown generated the show’s worst average viewership of 2020, and not to be outdone, Monday Night Raw averaged just 1.924 million viewers, making it the “second-lowest non-holiday Raw viewership in history.” Only the December 23, 2019 episode of Raw had a smaller audience, and according to Showbuzz Daily (h/t Wrestling Inc), the show had the “lowest third hour viewership of all-time, including holiday episodes,” with an average of 1.646 million viewers, equivalent to a staggering 23% decrease from the first hour.

The main event segment of Raw featured Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman addressing “The Beast’s” WrestleMania 36 opponent Drew McIntyre, and Showbuzz Daily (h/t Wrestling Inc) reports that the red brand’s final segment before the biggest pay-per-view of the year was the lowest-rated quarter-hour in WWE’s 27-year history:

“The Brock Lesnar – Paul Heyman that closed the show scored 1.574 million viewers and a 0.9 rating, which is the lowest quarter rating in show history.”

As it often tends to do, viewership for the go-home to WrestleMania 36 edition of Raw plummeted throughout the show. The peak in viewership was the show-opening promo from The Undertaker, which averaged 2.233 million viewers, and then, it was all downhill from there. Each of the show’s segments had fewer viewers than the previous one, which also held true for the final build to Lesnar vs. McIntyre on “The Grandest Stage of Them All.”

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Of course, WWE has found itself in a very unique situation over the past few weeks, when both Raw and SmackDown have emanated from the Performance Center in front of exactly zero fans due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though WWE has taken plenty of precautions at its TV tapings, the company has still come under heavy criticism for continuing to risk the health and safety of its performers by having them compete in matches and segments, often with several other people in close proximity. Due to its landmark TV deals for Raw and SmackDown, however, WWE has found itself in a tricky situation in which it wants to produce original, first-run programming even while essentially every other major sports organization has puts its season on hold.

One would think that—given the lack of other options for first-run sports at the moment—WWE being the only show in town would result in a significantly bigger audience than usual. However, general search interest in WWE has dropped considerably from where it was just around the Royal Rumble in January, in large part because the company has had to air pre-taped, audience-less shows due to the federal government’s social distancing guidelines. As a result, much of WWE’s programming has been in a state of flux as the company experienced a slew of major changes to the WrestleMania 36 card, most notably Roman Reigns withdrawing from the show due to COVID-19.

If there is a form of sports or entertainment that badly needs fans in attendance to improve the quality of the show, it’s WWE, whose product has undoubtedly dipped in quality due to the absence of the WWE Universe. That has unsurprisingly resulted in fans tuning out in droves even in route to what is supposed to be WWE’s biggest pay-per-view of the year, WrestleMania 36. Simply put, it’s hard for fans to emotionally invest themselves into any Raw or SmackDown storyline given everything that’s going on the world, and even though WWE has long considered Lesnar to be the company’s biggest draw, even the biggest names in pro wrestling are finding it difficult to draw in fans while arguably the top two shows in pro wrestling, NXT and AEW Dynamite, are losing fans at an alarmingly rapid rate as well.

With everything in a holding pattern, it’s going to be extremely difficult for WWE—and its biggest stars like Lesnar—to make any sort of marked difference when it comes to viewership until things get a little closer to normal.