The wild wedding segment that closed out the last episode of Monday Night Raw of the last decade felt like something out of the attitude era and the goal was to get a bigger than usual rating to close out the year. The goal was accomplished because they averaged 2.439 million total viewers for the three hours and the drop from the first to the third hour was not as bad as most weeks.
According to a WWE source, Vince McMahon was very happy with how everything played out to end the show. The source told me, “Vince has wanted to do more crazy stories like this but he has to balance things out to satisfy the people at USA [Network] and the sponsors. He got what he wanted this week and the overrun did nice numbers so Vince is in a good mood.”
The storyline involving Rusev, Lana, Bobby Lashley, and Liv Morgan is nowhere near its end. The same source said, “they have things mapped out for the next few weeks and this could run until WrestleMania. Vince loves this storyline so much and he’s open to more off the wall ideas. All I can tell you is there is some Jerry Springer stuff coming.”
I was told that Liv Morgan was not originally supposed to be in this storyline but plans changed and Paul Heyman wants to push her so the decision was made to have her involved in the wedding angle on Monday night.
I was also told that people in the company are thrilled with the YouTube numbers. The edited segment on YouTube has over 3.5 million views and the post-show video has been watched by more than 2.5 million people. They are hoping to see a ratings increase on Monday with the follow-up to this angle and the official start of the Royal Rumble hype. Another thing that should help WWE is that they don’t have to worry about Monday Night Football until the fall.
If you like the Lana-Lashley-Rusev-Liv Morgan stuff then you will be happy to know that this angle will continue. Several weeks ago I was told that Rusev would be getting a love interest and he would come out looking good at the end of this story.
