10 Things You Didn't Know About Stone Cold & Brian Pillman Gun Angle
7. Ratings Spiked, Nearly Tying Nitro Before Falling Off
After the segment aired, McMahon was initially pleased with how well everything came off. It felt real. Maybe a little too real, as Vince would come to learn.
When the ratings came in, it was the same old story. Nitro had defeated RAW handily, but there were some interesting revelations.
The quarterly breakdowns showed that the angle brought RAW to a near-tie with Nitro at one point in the broadcast. As much interest as the angle had apparently generated, the same quarterly breakdowns also showed that around 125,000 pre-teen viewers had tuned out once tensions peaked.
Apparently, the angle was too dramatic and much too intense for many younger viewers, as they tuned out of RAW and tuned into Nitro.
While a blow-away ratings win would've likely given Vince some support on which to back his idea to run this controversial segment, the USA Network and key advertisers were livid and the ratings were the least of their concerns.