10 Things You Learn From Rewatching LAST Time WWE Raw Lost In Ratings War
Can an Attitude Era Raw from 22 years ago inspire a present-day change in WWE attitude?
It feels like barely a week goes by where this statement isn't made, but this week saw WWE Raw hit an all-time low when it comes to ratings.
Sadly, Vince McMahon's sports entertainment juggernaut has been on a steady, worrying ratings decline for the past several years. While it's one thing to not hit the 7.4 ratings highs of the heady days of the Attitude Era, it's something completely different to only just stumble past an average of 1.5 million viewers for your supposed flagship show.
To add further concern to McMahon's ratings headache, this was alarmingly the first time that AEW outdid WWE in the vital 18-49 demographic - with the December 9 Dynamite hitting a 0.45 rating in this demo, compared to just a 0.41 by this week's Raw.
How Vince and WWE brass bounce back from yet another record-setting ratings low, that remains to be seen. If recent years offer up any indicator, we'll likely get false promises of change from the McMahons or yet further wacky ideas like Raw Underground.
For WWE, it's been 20 years of ratings dominance when it comes to wrestling programming. Looking at the history books, the last time WWE was on the losing end of a ratings battle was on October 26, 1998, where WCW Nitro toppled Raw for the final time.
Upon sitting down to revisit that particular episode of Raw, here are ten things that you find yourself picking up on.
10. It Was On The Back Of Vince Wetting Himself
People can often lambast the Attitude Era as being a time when the quality of wrestling was often neglected in favour of putting more of a spotlight on promos and outlandish antics. While that is true, so many of those promos and outlandish segments were ridiculously entertaining.
In a landscape filled with memorable moments, one of the most beloved of that period was Vince McMahon p*ssing his pants on live TV after 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin pulled a gun on his boss.
When revisiting the last time in history that Raw lost out in the ratings to a wrestling rival, it's a little jarring to immediately realise that this ratings loss came the week after McMahon micturated under the watch of the Texas Rattlesnake.
The October 26, 1998 Raw opens with a wheelchair-bound Vince promising revenge on an Austin who's fighting to win his job back, and it's only then that the penny drops that this episode of the company's flagship show aired directly after one of the most famous segments of the Attitude Era.
One would assume that a segment as iconic as the gun-toting Austin and p*ss-pants Vince would have seen a guaranteed Raw ratings win the following week. Instead, WWE was on the losing side of its back-and-forth battle with WCW on that night.