WWE Raw saw its highest viewership of the year with the Raw Reunion special inching past the night after WrestleMania as the most-watched episode of 2019.
The three-hour reunion special with dozens of stars from the past, led by Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan, averaged 3,093,000 viewers on the USA Network.
The overall viewership was up 26% from the week prior and up 5.8% from the night after WrestleMania 35. If you are comparing to the last big Raw special, which was the 25th Anniversary show in January 2018, it was down 31% with last year’s special doing 4,500,000 and was the most-watched episode of Raw since March 2015.
The first hour of Monday’s show averaged 3,019,000, which was their fifth-largest opening hour of 2019. The number increased by 5.3% in the second hour to 3,178,000 and was the most-watched hour of the three. The average dropped 3% for the final hour down to 3,083,000 viewers and included the show-closing segment built around Steve Austin’s ‘Toast to Raw’ with Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and all the guests on stage.
The third hour was the most-watched final hour of Raw since the 2018 Superstar Shakeup in April. Prior to this week, the highest third-hour performance of the year was for the Ric Flair birthday celebration on February 25th that averaged 2,648,000 viewers.
While they can point to the show having its best performance of the year, it showed that the nostalgia of the names coming back didn’t mean as much as the last time. They only promoted the special for eight-days and it didn’t have the build-up of the 25th Anniversary, which was the last time Austin appeared on the program.
