Tommaso Ciampa Vs. Giovanni Vinci Was Least-Watched WWE Raw Match Ever

WWE loves breaking records, with everything from ‘longest episodic television show’ to numerous attendance records held by the sports entertainment giant.

However, WWE set an unfortunate new record this week, when it was revealed that the Tommaso Ciampa vs. Giovanni Vinci singles match on the September 18 edition of Raw was the least watched match in the history of the show.

Raw was up against two NFL games on September 18, with the overall viewership of the show slipping to new lows from the week prior. On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer explained what these record low viewership numbers mean:

“The Raw number was the lowest viewer total in the history of the show, except for one of the ‘best of’ shows a couple of years ago. 1,331,000 viewers. But up to 0.44 in 18-49. This was against two football games, so the two football games combined did roughly the same, it was almost exact of what last week did with the one game on both ABC and ESPN, it was a bigger game last week, but this time it was two games, it was in the range of 22 million viewers. So 22,304,000 viewers. So very formidable competition and explains the ratings drop.

“But Raw was up with younger viewers from the week before – 0.44 is, considering that competition, 0.44 is not bad. But, the flip side is that it was up higher with the younger viewers than last week, but it was down (overall), which means another drop in over 50, which is where your viewer total is generally determined by how many over 50 viewers because that’s the vast majority of the Raw audience, although it’s becoming less of the vast majority of the Raw audience since August, since SummerSlam. So that’s continuing to drop, a lot of which is related to football, but there is football every single year, and the drop in over 50 viewers started before football, but it’s really accelerated in the last two weeks. Not as a surprise. So that was the situation there.

“Raw had been ahead of last year’s numbers consistently, but the past couple of weeks, that has not been the case. Raw was the lowest… it was not the lowest first hour in history, but it was the lowest second hour, and the lowest third hour. And the Ciampa match with Giovanni Vinci was the least-watched Raw match in history, with 1,192,000 viewers. So that was the basic situation there,” explained Meltzer.

Whilst these facts may seem alarming on the face of it, the ways viewers engage with television as a whole - never mind pro wrestling - has changed drastically in the 30 years that Raw has been on the air. WWE will most likely not be all that bothered about these ‘record lows’ but will definitely hope it doesn’t happen again.

H/T: WrestleTalk