2.5

2.5. Is that the rating for the best Smackdown of the year? How about the rating for what TNA would score if...well, never? 2.5 is the number for this week's Raw, which was a non-holiday Raw.

When I saw the viewership numbers, I expected a disastrous number for the ratings. Not a single hour of Raw averaged even 4 million viewers. A 2.54 is not good. When you round it down, it looks even worse. These are the kind of numbers that Smackdown was getting not too long ago. Bad ratings and bad viewership.

Blame football? Well, of course. Cowboys vs. Bears. Those two teams have a ton of fans. However, I could picture some games that could have drawn even more viewers than that. Neither of those two teams were undefeated this season. Neither of them really featured a top 5 quarterback. This game, even though every game in the regular season is important, was not that crucial. Point is, Raw didn't even go up against the biggest possible threat that football could have presented, but they still end up with the worst number for a non-holiday Raw in 15 years, according to reports.

Blame the lack of Cena? I don't think so. Cena has suffered two major injuries since becoming centerpiece. Coincidentally, both happened around this same time of year. I am referring to 2007 and 2008. He was out for months for both those injuries. This time, he is only out for a few weeks. He was even on Raw last week. They still mention him a ton on Raw. The current major storyline for CM Punk is his possible match with John Cena at Hell in a Cell. Even though Cena got injured during football season in 2007 and 2008, Raw's ratings did not really seem to flop, not in the manner you are having now.

Blame the lack of creativity? Yes. I pointed out yesterday that there are really no good storylines going on for singles wrestlers in the midcard. You have this tag tournament going on, which is good, but would anyone really expect it to draw? Even without Cena, the WWE is still banking on the main-event scene to draw for them. Aside from teasing Punk vs. Cena, they have Punk having these encounters with Ryback, interacting with legends to try to get him to face Cena, and had him face Kane and Daniel Bryan this week. That is a lot of Punk. How about spreading some of that focus to more midcarders? Not to sound like a CM Punk hater, but I don't think he can get the job done in drawing in a wide audience, especially around this time of year.

I think the numbers may have sank as far as they will go for now. They will rebound next week. The WWE product is still weak and hasn't really created proper hype to get fans to tune in. It is getting so boring, they may start losing more regular viewers. With so little confidence in the WWE product, how can I think ratings will be better next week? I don't think every football game will draw as well as this week's. A 2.5 is so low, I cannot imagine it dropping further so soon. Maybe in December it will, but not now. If it does drop to a 2.4, you have a real crisis on your hands and the WWE needs to reevaluate itself.