WWE RAW Ratings Boosted By John Cena Return & Vince McMahon Arrest

Despite half the roster working a house show event in Allentown, PA on Monday night, RAW's profile was boosted by the returns to television of Vince McMahon and John Cena. The return by the biggest star in the company (Cena) helped WWE sell-out the Barclays Center in advance of the show, and it also appears to have slightly helped out in the television ratings department. The December 28th edition of RAW drew an average of 3.536 million viewers. This is up 5% from last week's show, which averaged 3.376 million viewers. The hourly breakdown for the show was as follows:

First Hour: 3.695 million viewers (3.443 million last week) Second Hour: 3.488 million viewers (3.786 million last week) Third Hour: 3.425 million viewers (3.316 million last week)

The interesting thing to note is that WWE held off Cena's return until the final hour, yet some viewers still tuned out as the show went on (which has been a trend now for several months), though the drop from hour one to hour three was far less pronounced than it has been in the past. Besides the Cena return, the show-long story of Vince McMahon being arrested and taken to jail could have also been responsible for less viewers tuning out than usual. Even so, the broadcast still lost some of its audience from hour one to hour three. Overall, WWE has to be pleased with these viewership numbers considering Monday Night Football drew their largest audience of the year this week. The good news for WWE is that this was also the final week of Monday Night Football until the 2016 season begins in September. This week's RAW ended up finishing as the third most watched show on cable television Monday night, trailing Monday Night Football and SportsCenter.