April 6, 2015 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Annual WrestleMania issue, Ronda Rousey, new WWE Champion, Brock Lesnar and more! by Dave Meltzer

Author:Dave Meltzer [Meltzer, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Wrestling, wrestling observer newsletter
Publisher: F4WOnline
Published: 2015-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

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The Raw after WrestleMania on 3/30 exploded with 3.67 rating and 5.35 million viewers, the largest number of viewers for an episode since the July 23, 2012, 100th episode of Raw that did a 3.86 rating and 6.04 million viewers. 6,019,000 viewers.

Last year’s Raw after WrestleMania did a 3.69 rating and 5.14 million viewers, going head-to-head with the NCAA basketball finals that did 17.79 million viewers. So really, last year’s number was more impressive because this year they had the advantage of not going against the NCAA finals. The Raw after WrestleMania tradition of big ratings is weird. It is usually the most-watched episode of the year, but it’s still always hurt by the NCAA finals.

In 2013, they did a 3.43 rating and 4.61 million viewers going against a basketball game that did 23.43 million viewers, and in 2012 they did a 3.43 rating and 5.02 million viewers, going against a game that did 20.87 million viewers. This year did the most viewers for a Raw after Mania since 2011, which did a 3.84 rating and 5.62 million viewers.

Last year’s show also drew a lot of attention due to Undertaker’s streak ending and Daniel Bryan’s title win. Still, even if last year’s number would have been significantly higher if it wasn’t going against the basketball game, this shows that the interest in the product the next day was probably not that far off the day after breaking Undertaker’s streak, which was huge.

The three hours were 5.23 million viewers for the first hour, 5.60 million for the second hour and 5.27 million for the third hour.

The Hall of Fame ceremony after Raw did 2.15 million viewers, down from the 2.40 million for the same show in 2013.

World Series of Fighting on 3/28 featuring Justin Gaethje retaining his lightweight title over Luis Palomino, said to be a match of the year candidate, did 216,000 viewers, which is at its usual level.

Impact on 3/27 increased significantly to 444,000 viewers for the first run show and 164,000 for the first replay. It was a replay show record and the best first show in five weeks. For whatever this is worth, the audience in the prime demo was 82% male, which is almost an unheard of split, especially when you consider half the audience was above the age of 51, because at that age, a lot of people are married and you’d think at least some would watch with their wives. Okay, drop that thought.

Bellator on 3/27 did 607,000 viewers for the show headlined by Marcos Galvao winning the bantamweight title from Joe Warren. That is not a good showing at all, particularly for a title match and given Warren has been one of the company’s signature stars since it got on Spike.

Smackdown on 3/26 did a 1.86 rating and 2.51 million viewers, finishing fifth for the night on cable, behind three different NCAA basketball games and Pawn Stars. The Thursday before Mania Smackdown usually doesn’t do big numbers because it’s almost done as a throw away show since the closing big angles are on Raw.

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