By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

Monday's WWE Raw performed poorly in terms of overall rating (2.99), TV viewership, and key demographics for a WrestleMania Season episode faced with standard TV competition. (Read the Raw TV ratings report)

The quarter-hour ratings indicate viewers simply were not interested in the show, and, without a strong top-of-the-second-hour rating for the Shawn Michaels and Triple H verbal exchange, the rating would have been much lower.

Raw's opening segment with the Elimination Chamber debate scored a 2.93 rating (down 19 percent from a 3.62 rating to begin last week's Raw).

After the ratings fluctuated throughout the remainder of the first hour, which was the least-watched first hour in 23 weeks, Raw peaked with a 3.56 rating in the fifth quarter-hour for the Michaels-Hunter exchange.

The sixth quarter-hour rating plummeted for the second of two Chamber preview matches (Dolph Ziggler vs. R-Truth), which is not a surprise considering Q6 had two commercial breaks and the match was presented by WWE as a "comedown match" following the Hunter-HBK exchange.

Raw then declined to as low as a 2.77 rating in the eighth quarter-hour for the third Chamber match/TV main event of C.M. Punk vs. The Miz. This was also presented as a "comedown match" after HBK-Hunter and Cena-Kane-Ryder-Eve segments. Also, the segment contained one-and-a-half commercial breaks.

Raw concluded with a weaker-than-normal 3.14 over-run rating for the final Cena-Kane-Ryder-Eve segment that followed a commercial break near the top of the hour. By comparison, last week's over-run for a six-man tag match scored a 3.42 rating.

[Quarter-hours credit: Wrestling Observer Newsletter]

Caldwell's Analysis: To me, it's a mystery why a portion of the audience simply avoided this show, especially looking at the first quarter-hour rating. Last week's Raw wasn't terrible - I felt it was just average - but could a "just average" show the week after a very strong post-Royal Rumble episode of Raw have driven viewers away? Perhaps WWE raised the bar too high after the Rumble, they couldn't sustain it last week because the booking is inconsistent, and perhaps people tuned out this week after being disappointed last week. Or, it was simply one of those weeks where casual viewers were only interested in Michaels's return and nothing else held their interest.

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