By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

WWE Raw on Monday night, February 21 scored a 3.83 rating, up 22 percent compared to the Feb. 14 episode. It's the highest rating since the September 7, 2009 episode.

(By comparison to last year, the Feb. 22 episode following the Elimination Chamber PPV scored a 3.80 rating and averaged 5.51 million viewers.)

Monday's Raw averaged 5.86 million viewers, up 23 percent from the Feb. 14 episode leading to this year's Elimination Chamber PPV.

The first hour averaged more viewers than the second hour - 5.89 million viewers vs. 5.82 million viewers. (It's the most first-hour viewers since the June 22, 2009 commercial-free Raw, which averaged 6.30 million viewers in the first hour.)

Overall, it's the most average viewers for an episode of Raw since August 24, 2009 following Summerslam, which also averaged 5.86 million viewers. Prior to that, Raw's highest total was on the June 29, 2009 episode, which averaged 5.96 million viewers following the first commercial-free Raw.

Going back to last week's Raw, the 20-minute over-run featuring The Rock's return averaged 5.70 million viewers. The second hour of the March 29 Raw following last year's WrestleMania - with Shawn Michaels's retirement speech - averaged 5.80 million viewers.

-- Check back for a follow-up report on the demographic ratings later tonight...

Caldwell's Analysis: The week after Rock (with viewers curious to see if he would be on this week's show) + the night after the Elimination Chamber PPV + 2/21/11 reveal + Undertaker expected to return = huge viewership. WWE likely won't be able to sustain this level interest going to WrestleMania, but it could set them up to at least score in the 3.3-3.5 ratings range.

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