10 Weird But True Facts For WWE In 2023
8. Raw’s Best Effort
Fans and critics alike praised WWE’s Raw is XXX, celebrating the company’s flagship show’s 30th anniversary.
Unlike previous reunions, anniversaries and other special shows, this January 2023 offering nailed the pacing, presentation, utilization of talent, and overall booking. Fans have had to suffer through some putrid reunion shows that just crammed legends and Hall-of-Famers into nonsensical segments, often pairing up people who never interacted on WWE programming previously. Those shows sacrificed the current roster in favor of wayward nostalgia, and it showed in the poor quality.
Raw is XXX was fantastic, and fans rewarded WWE by tuning in in record numbers: 2.344 million viewers, which was the largest Raw television audience for 2023. But it also was a larger audience than any episode of Raw recorded for 2021 or 2022 as well. It was the largest Raw audience since 17 February, 2020, when Kevin Owens and the Viking Raiders defeated Murphy and AOP in the main event.
For the sake of comparison, SmackDown topped Raw is XXX’s viewership number 20 times during 2023, but there’s a big difference between a cable show on USA Network and a broadcast on Fox.