Will The Rock Bring It For Raw In 2012?

Last year, The Rock returned and kicked several huge field goals for the WWE. If you don't really care about football, which I didn't for the first 24 years of my life, I'm saying that he delivered in the ratings for Raw. 3.9. 3.8. 3.92, and a string of numbers that the WWE had to be loving. However, he did not save Raw from having the worst yearly average in the ratings in over a decade. How will he do this time, as he returns to Raw to promote his feud with John Cena?

First, let me look at how the feud is going. Last week, Cena gave his typical promo concerning The Rock. His promo had heart, emotion, wit, some sharpness, but at the end of the day, it is pretty much the same thing John Cena always says. At the rate things are going, I can only imagine that The Rock's promo in response to Cena will be a lot of the same things he has already said. It will be a lot of the same things I see fans and members or former members of wrestling promotions debating about. The Rock can simply just say that he paved the way for guys like Cena. He can say that the only reason Cena is so loyal to the WWE is because he has not been as successful with his movies as The Rock. Had things been different, Cena would be different. In time, Cena will "betray" the fans and leave for other things too. The Rock could even bring up the fact that Cena really isn't there each and every night. No matter what The Rock chooses to say, it will most likely be predictable. This feud has a lot of hype to it, but I wish they would start doing something else. Are they really going to continue this endless debate to Wrestlemania?

Back to my first question, how will The Rock do for the ratings? Obviously, the same amount of shock value and excitement that was there last year is not here at the same level anymore. The fact that the feud seems to be pushing the same monotonous idea may not help things. Raw got a 3.2 last week. The Rock being advertised should cause a boost. Nevertheless, I am not expecting a high 3.9. If I had to pick a number, I would say Raw will get a 3.7. That is a higher number than Raws featuring hype with Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker have gotten recently. Am I overestimating the power of The Rock?

I haven't looked at how ratings are going for the three major shows in a while. Ignoring last week's Smackdown, which, although being live, was not advertised as well as it could have, was up against tough competition, and most of what happened on the show was crap, if their intention was to actually make a great live show that would draw, Smackdown's numbers have been pretty good so far. Most of the ratings have been above a 2.0. Impact is not doing as well as it did last year. Nevertheless, staying above that 1.0 is good. Raw remains the most interesting thing to talk about as far as ratings go. The yearly average so far is a 3.14. In comparison, 3.23 was the average for pre-Rock Raw ratings in 2011. This is the average for the episodes of Raw prior to everyone knowing he really was back, so it includes the episode in which he returned in the final segment. If you don't count that episode, which got a 3.14 rating, the pre-Rock average would be slightly higher. If you don't like trying to understand all these numbers, let me just get to the point. Raw's in worse shape now, in terms of ratings, than it was last year. More fans losing interest? More fans just choosing to watch whatever segments they find interesting on Youtube? Reason for the WWE to panic? Let's see what The Rock can do this time.