Raw rating averages per champion

[Above Average]

People always seem to blame the person on top of the brand for the downfall or upswing in ratings, and so I decided to take a look at the average ratings for Raw according to championship holder.

Notes: If there was no Raw during a particular week, I do not count that week as having happened. Title reigns are counted as between both the WHC and WWE titles. For 4 weeks in 2005 Cena and Batista were both on the same show at the same time - this data counted towards both men. I have started from the first reign that is fully accounted for in Raw ratings.

Here we go:

Bret Hart 3rd reign - 2.73 over 17 weeks of Raw programming
Shawn Michaels 1st reign - 2.61 over 31 weeks
Sycho Sid 1st reign - 2.24 over 5 weeks
Shawn Michaels 2nd reign - 2.33 over 4 weeks
Bret Hart 4th reign - 2.1 over 1 week
Sycho Sid 2nd reign - 2.28 over 4 weeks
Undertaker 2nd reign - 2.74 over 19 weeks
Bret Hart 5th reign - 2.65 over 12 weeks
Shawn Michaels 3rd reign - 3.33 over 18 weeks
Steve Austin 1st reign - 4.6 over 13 weeks
Kane 1st reign - 5.4 over 1 week
Steve Austin 2nd reign - 4.45 over 11 weeks
Rock 1st reign - 5.13 over 8 weeks
Mankind 1st reign - 5.55 over 2 weeks
Rock 2nd reign - 5.5 over 1 week
Mankind 2nd reign - 5.9 over 2 weeks
Rock 3rd reign - 6.08 over 5 weeks
Steve Austin 3rd reign - 6.45 over 8 weeks
Undertaker 3rd reign - 6.68 over 5 weeks
Steve Austin 4th reign - 6.35 over 7 weeks
Mankind 3rd reign - 5.9 over 1 week
Triple H 1st reign - 4.87 over 3 weeks
Vince McMahon 1st reign - 6.1 over 1 week
Triple H 2nd reign - 5.87 over 7 weeks
Big Show 1st reign - 6.05 over 8 weeks
Triple H 3rd reign - 6.33 over 16 weeks
Rock 4th reign - 6.57 over 3 weeks
Triple H 4th reign - 6.4 over 5 weeks
Rock 5th reign - 5.68 over 17 weeks
Kurt Angle 1st reign - 5 over 18 weeks
Rock 6th reign - 4.76 over 5 weeks
Steve Austin 5th reign - 4.84 over 25 weeks
Kurt Angle 2nd reign - 4.47 over 3 weeks
Steve Austin 6th reign - 4.19 over 8 weeks
Chris Jericho 1st reign - 4.29 over 14 weeks
Triple H 5th reign - 5.02 over 5 weeks
Hollywood Hulk Hogan 6th reign - 4.43 over 4 weeks
Undertaker 4th reign - 3.82 over 9 weeks
Rock 7th reign - 3.92 over 5 weeks
Brock Lesnar - 3.9 over 1 week
Triple H 6th reign - 3.53 over 10 weeks
Shawn Michaels 4th reign - 3.43 over 4 weeks
Triple H 7th reign - 3.84 over 39 weeks
Goldberg 1st reign - 3.58 over 12 weeks
Triple H 8th reign - 3.7 over 12 weeks
Chris Benoit 1st reign - 3.79 over 22 weeks
Randy Orton 1st reign - 3.55 over 4 weeks
Triple H 9th reign - 3.62 over 13 weeks
Triple H 10th reign - 3.89 over 12 weeks
Batista 1st reign - 3.99 over 13 weeks
John Cena 1st reign - 3.77 over 31 weeks
Edge 1st reign - 4.37 over 3 weeks
John Cena 2nd reign - 4.07 over 19 weeks
Rob Van Dam 1st reign - 4.05 over 4 weeks
Edge 2nd reign - 3.87 over 10 weeks
John Cena 3rd reign - 3.53 over 55 weeks
Randy Orton 3rd reign - 3.42 over 29 weeks
Triple H 12th reign - 3.18 over 5 weeks (so far)

Get to your bitching about the champs

[rrm15]

Edge 1st reign - 4.37 over 3 weeks
John Cena 2nd reign - 4.07 over 19 weeks
Rob Van Dam 1st reign - 4.05 over 4 weeks
Edge 2nd reign - 3.87 over 10 weeks
John Cena 3rd reign - 3.53 over 55 weeks
Randy Orton 3rd reign - 3.42 over 29 weeks
Triple H 12th reign - 3.18 over 5 weeks (so far)

Only thing I notice here is that they get progressively lower, regardless of who the champ is.

[Legion]

So Ministry Undertaker = highest drawing Champion in 12 years?

I knew it was the best gimmick ever. Excellent.

[Next Level was WRONG]

Vince McMahon = Ratings.

[SBYM (Heel Turn)]

OMG Bret Hart had da loweist ratings when he wuz champ! WURST EVUH!

[MGH]

May 29, 2008 14:07:39 GMT -5 @rrm15 said:

Edge 1st reign - 4.37 over 3 weeks
John Cena 2nd reign - 4.07 over 19 weeks
Rob Van Dam 1st reign - 4.05 over 4 weeks
Edge 2nd reign - 3.87 over 10 weeks
John Cena 3rd reign - 3.53 over 55 weeks
Randy Orton 3rd reign - 3.42 over 29 weeks
Triple H 12th reign - 3.18 over 5 weeks (so far)

Only thing I notice here is that they get progressively lower, regardless of who the champ is.

Indeed, which I do think is a sign that it isn't who has the strap, but the overall product. I've loved WWE this year, but it's obvious many haven't.

When the draft comes they need to make things different. Not just toss MVP to Raw and Jericho to Smackdown different, but massive. Send someone in the HHH/HBK class to Smackdown. Shoot some combination of Batista/Taker/Edge to Raw. Send Orton to Smackdown to feud for the title. Move someone like Jeff Hardy or CM Punk to Smackdown and have them main eventing. Some things HAVE to change soon. People are started to get tired of the same old same old on both brands.

[odor31]

Vince McMahon 1st reign - 6.1 over 1 week

Boo...ya.

[rodneyroberts]

HHH>Hogan.

[Kyle]

Cool post dude, thanks for the into!

[Tyfo]

Since it didn't go back far enough, a major omission here is Kevin Nash, as the Diesel character, with the strap for almost a years worth of programming, averaged a 87.8 rating.

The Nielson people didn't think their ratings went that high........they did that year.

Hell, I think theres even a chart somewhere on this. And if you think thats high, you don't even want to see the Nitro average after Nash's first WCW title run!

[Next Level was WRONG]

May 29, 2008 14:28:06 GMT -5 Tyfo said:

Since it didn't go back far enough, a major omission here is Kevin Nash, as the Diesel character, with the strap for almost a years worth of programming, averaged a 87.8 rating.

The Nielson people didn't think their ratings went that high........they did that year.

Hell, I think theres even a chart somewhere on this. And if you think thats high, you don't even want to see the Nitro average after Nash's first WCW title run!

You know how they always say that TNA gets a 1.0 rating? Its actually a 100.00 rating, which is the highest it can possibly go. Any more than that, and the world runs out of power.

[SassovsHart]

May 29, 2008 14:10:30 GMT -5 MGH said:

May 29, 2008 14:07:39 GMT -5 @rrm15 said:

Only thing I notice here is that they get progressively lower, regardless of who the champ is.

Indeed, which I do think is a sign that it isn't who has the strap, but the overall product. I've loved WWE this year, but it's obvious many haven't.

When the draft comes they need to make things different. Not just toss MVP to Raw and Jericho to Smackdown different, but massive. Send someone in the HHH/HBK class to Smackdown. Shoot some combination of Batista/Taker/Edge to Raw. Send Orton to Smackdown to feud for the title. Move someone like Jeff Hardy or CM Punk to Smackdown and have them main eventing. Some things HAVE to change soon. People are started to get tired of the same old same old on both brands.

I don't think just moving guys around will help long term though. I think if they don't shake it up creatively, people will realize that the names may have changed, but it's all still the same .... just different guys playing the roles. One thing I'd try to do is add more complexity and drama to the WWE title feuds. It seems like they've gotten into a pattern of just doing "This guy wants the title, this other guy has it, they'll wrestle a couple times in tag matches, then do a promo where they practice their angry glares at each other."

Try to make things more personal, you've got guys with plenty of history with each other ... but it seems like they're just doing lazy, by the numbers feuds with no depth to the stories. One thing I liked about the Hardy vs. Orton feud is that it had the wrinkle added with Orton attacking Jeff's brother, and Jeff acting like an out of control maniac trying to take Orton out because of that. I think having more stuff like that in the title feuds could help .... memorable moments, doing stuff to create hatred between the guys on a personal level, and having them try to rip each other apart because of it. Just my opinion on the matter.

[corndog]

This is meaningless, however I may agree that shaking it up can help, look at the period where Edge, RVD and Cena were champs the rating temporarily shot up, I think people are getting sick of the same old same old, which is HHH. And as far as saying Bret Hart had the lowest ratings, okay his meaningless one day as champ did, but then again you can say his title reign before WM12 was more successful than HBKs first title reign. But the WWF was really struggling then, they were continuing to lose talent to WCW, and WCW was on fire with a not yet stale NWO angle, plus they had almost all of the top names in wrestling minus Micheals and Hart. The WWE has no excuses now, their only main competition doesn't even go head to head with them anymore, they have a huge pool of talent and they still can get good numbers. However I do not think the ratings reflect the champion as much as the product as a whole, people just aren't watching because people are sick of Vince not taking wrestling seriously.

[Ace Diamond]

Really interesting find, but again I'm not sure ratings = monetary gain after finding out that with progressively sliding ratings the WWE made more money than they did first quarter this time last year. It's still all very interesting however.

[macdaddysquid]

cool post. Nice to see my favorite champs are the highest rated.

[SassovsHart]

May 29, 2008 15:32:38 GMT -5 Ace Diamond said:

Really interesting find, but again I'm not sure ratings = monetary gain after finding out that with progressively sliding ratings the WWE made more money than they did first quarter this time last year. It's still all very interesting however.

I'm pretty sure that WWE also had both the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania listed in the same financial quarter this year, which is something they normally don't do, that inflated their first quarter earnings.

[Ace Diamond]

May 29, 2008 15:37:15 GMT -5 SassovsHart said:

May 29, 2008 15:32:38 GMT -5 Ace Diamond said:

Really interesting find, but again I'm not sure ratings = monetary gain after finding out that with progressively sliding ratings the WWE made more money than they did first quarter this time last year. It's still all very interesting however.

I'm pretty sure that WWE also had both the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania listed in the same financial quarter this year, which is something they normally don't do, that inflated their first quarter earnings.

I don't recall them doing that (again I don't fully remember) all I took away from that was that tehy were making more money because buyrates from No Way Out were 3x as much as last year

[big nasty]

it seems ratings have been dropping since brock lesnar left. could it be disillusionment on the part of fans? seeing two of the biggest starts and favorites (goldberg and lesnar)walk away like that may have hurt more than anyone realized at the time.

just a theory...and a screwy one at that

although it could just be that curretn main eventers are just lame, and dont really attract the non-fan, so to speak.

[The Genesis of KoOS]

It's safe to say...

Edge > Cena

[Threadkiller [Classic]]

May 29, 2008 14:08:10 GMT -5 Legion said:

So Ministry Undertaker = highest drawing Champion in 12 years?

I knew it was the best gimmick ever. Excellent.

Well, you have to remember, Ministry Undertaker's first night as champion after winning the title was Raw Is Owen, which I believe is still the highest rated single episode of a wrestling program (whether on network or cable television) in history. Didn't it do like a 9 or 10 rating or something? That alone would have definitely inflated Taker's numbers, especially since he was only champion for a month before dropping it back to Austin. Plus, wasn't the Higher Power angle going on about this time? I remember that creating a huge buzz around the product.