Considering the fact that the last two episodes of Monday Night Raw were bookended by the Royal Rumble pay-per-view (PPV), it's no surprise that ratings were up for both shows. One of those featured the return of Batista and did a huge number while the other showcased all the fallout from the big event and maintained most of the audience from the week prior.

This week, however, featured a show steeped in uncertainty that was missing two of its top stars, CM Punk (walked out) and John Cena (eye injury), and the viewership total was down big.

Raw averaged 4.20 million viewers for all three hours, compared to 4.86 million on Jan. 20 (Batista's return, Rumble go home show) and 4.71 million on Jan. 27 (Rumble fallout show). Here's the hourly breakdown for this week:

Hour one: 4.43 million

Hour two: 4.22 million

Hour three: 3.98 million

After the way the Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton feud was treated throughout the latter half of 2013, is it any surprise fans couldn't have cared less about a match between the two in early 2014? For that matter, isn't Batista supposed to be a monster draw to justify his equally monstrous push?

It's only one week, of course, but dipping below four million viewers for the third hour is not a good sign of things to come. Fans are not very confident in WWE to deliver a compelling product right now.

For complete results and the live blog from Raw click here. For full reactions click here. And for a complete playlist from the show click here.