Last night's episode of Monday Night Raw in Buffalo, New York featured the return of Vince McMahon and the obvious absence of John Cena. And while neither can fully take the credit for the viewership total getting a much needed boost, it's worth pointing out anyway.

Indeed, the show drew 4.04 million viewers for all three hours, up big from the 3.74 who tuned in last week. In fact, that's the highest number dating back to the end of September.

The hourly breakdown:

Hour one: 4.04 million

Hour two: 4.20 million

Hour three: 3.87 million

Numbers dropping that steeply in the third hour is always unfortunate but it follows the established pattern is exactly what happened on the aforementioned show in late September. Either way, WWE has been needing some good news of late and it got some here.

For complete results and the live blog from Raw click here, and for a full recap with reactions click here.