Since John Cena took a hiatus from WWE at the end of October, ratings dropped steadily before cratering in late November at 2.96 million viewers (from 3.36 million viewers for the last Raw Cena appeared on). They spiked two weeks ago with the return of Mr. McMahon and Roman Reigns title victory, but still are slightly down from when Cena last appeared. So with Cena returning to the fold, will that mean a climb in the ratings? One of the major reasons for Cena being on top of the promotion for a decade now (besides the merchandise sales, charity work, in-ring skill, etc.) is that when he goes away, ratings tend to drop off. By that logic, his return Monday night should lead to a spike in ratings, right? And given that Cena will face the man who beat him for the United States Championship hes held for much of 2015, it should be a pretty good draw. WWE has to be banking on Cenas return overcoming a holiday weekend drop-off and hopefully setting the table for 2016. Itll be interesting to see if Cena comes out to open Raw and grab viewers, or if hell be dangled in vignettes to hook them for his match later on.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
