WWE got some bad news today, as the Raw rating slid to 2.72 among stiff competition from the NBA playoffs and the record setting series premiere of History Channel's Hatfields and McCoy's. The show had 3.91 million viewers for both hours, which is the first time the show has landed with less than 4 million viewers since the start of Monday Night Football and the 2011-12 NFL Season.

You can read more about the Cable Ratings breakdowns from Monday Night at zap2it.com.

Barnett's Brief: Well, this number isn't the end of the world, and you can't even call it a trend yet, but you have to wonder how much knee jerk is taking place within WWE in response to this number. There were a lot of factors in play with TV competition and the holidays, and you can't forget about John Cena being absent from the show. We'll have to see how this all pans out over the next few weeks. This viewer hopes that the response to this is at the very least an internal conversation about the direction of this Big Show and Cena feud.

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