RAW Breakdown: Del Rio/Santino & Sheamus-Henry Loses

Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

- As noted before, the February 7th WWE RAW did a 3.30 rating with 4.93 million viewers.

In a segment-by-segment breakdown, Vince McMahon's announcement and the angle with Randy Orton & Nexus opened with a 3.55 rating. R-Truth vs. Mason Ryan lost 618,000 viewers while Eve Torres, Gail Kim and Tamina vs. Melina & The Bella Twins gained 280,000 viewers. Michael McGillicutty vs. John Morrison lost 349,000 viewers while the angle with The Miz and Jerry Lawler with the beginning of the Lawler & Daniel Bryan vs. Miz & Ted DiBiase match gained 723,000 viewers for the 10pm time.

However, the ending of the tag match and the angle with Sheamus and Mark Henry lost 383,000 viewers. In another big loss, the Santino Marella vs. Alberto Del Rio match lost 305,000 viewers and was the lowest rated segment of the show.

The main event of CM Punk vs. John Cena and the brawl at the end gained 504,000 viewers, a little less than the usual overrun, ending RAW with a 3.45 rating for the overrun.

A bit surprised to see the Diva's match gained quite viewers. Nothing else really surprises me. Definitely not shocked that Sheamus/Henry and Del Rio/Santino would bring big losses of viewers.

Hmm...I don't know if it's because Santino was in the match but if not, I would be worried if I was WWE about Alberto Del Rio's push. It's only 1 week but if this is a constant theme building towards Wrestlemania, they might reconsider pushing Del Rio.

EdgeHead wrote:

Hmm...I don't know if it's because Santino was in the match but if not, I would be worried if I was WWE about Alberto Del Rio's push. It's only 1 week but if this is a constant theme building towards Wrestlemania, they might reconsider pushing Del Rio.

As much as it pains me to say this, even if it wasn't because of Santino (and I'm almost positive that it was), it probably wouldn't be that big of a problem for Del Rio if it did continue, on Raw at least. Del Rio's push mainly stemmed because of him not being an awful wrestler, being Hispanic and Mysterio getting closer to leaving. As we know, Smackdown does great in the Hispanic demographic, due to Mysterio (and soon, probably Del Rio). As great as Rey was in drawing them to watch Smackdown, when they drafted him to Raw, barely any improvement was made. So, considering that he is being pushed to keep Smackdown's Hispanic demographic the same when Rey leaves, his push won't be reconsidered unless he begins to fail in that department.