10 Decisions That Helped Kill WWE Raw's Ratings
2. The Roman Reigns Push
Raw's ratings have been on a slow-but-steady decline since late 2000, but over the past two-plus years, that decline has sped up at an alarming rate. Since 2015, it's hard to count how many episodes of Raw have broken the record for the lowest-rated episode in 20 years, or excepting holidays, ever.
Raw's decline coincides with the hard push of Roman Reigns, which began right around the start of 2015 and also overshadowed Daniel Bryan's brief return from injury. Reigns is clearly a talented performer, but WWE crowds quickly made it clear that they had no interest in seeing him pushed as the company's top face. Vince McMahon soon made it equally clear that he was going to do it anyway.
To this day, Reigns hasn't spent that much time as WWE Champion, but it's been clear from the programming that he's the company's top priority. Other stars - especially heels whom he's chased for the title who aren't named Triple H - have been booked horribly, and even if he's contesting for the United States title, he's still the centerpiece of Raw. The fans who still go to shows boo Reigns vociferously, and with a lot more antipathy than they ever did John Cena.
Reigns ascension and continued position at the top of WWE has shown many longtime fans that the company truly doesn't care about what they think. While many of these fans will happily subscribe to the WWE Network to watch pay-per-view events, they've been abandoning Raw in droves.