During the WrestleMania build, WWE could generally count on the feud between the heel Michael Cole and the babyface Jerry Lawler to spike viewership interest.
That interest appears to have faded, as a significant portion of Monday’s WWE RAW audience tuned out during Cole’s match with Zack Ryder.
According to a quarterly ratings breakdown at F4WOnline.com, Triple H’s “State of WWE Address” popped an impressive 3.8 cable coverage rating, representing one of the biggest “top of the hour” spikes in a while for the weekly wrestling telecast. The segment with Zack Ryder versus Michael Cole, the match that Triple H’s promo built, fell to a 3.1 rating, which conceivably represents a loss of more than one million viewers.
Given the immense fan interest in Triple H’s follow-up to the angle with Vince McMahon, that segment undoubtedly benefited from “curiosity buzz” that would not customarily trickle over to the next segment. But a drop of this magnitude, especially since the Cole match was plugged during Triple H’s promo, is still a disappointment.
The low rating, of course, also speaks negatively to Ryder’s drawing ability, indicating that his online buzz has not yet translated to television interest.
