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The ratings are in for this week’s Raw and it appears the show is rallying somewhat. Raw on USA registered a relatively solid 3.5 rating for both hours of the show; and for the past month, Raw has found at least 5 million viewers, on average, each week. That’s better than an iPad warranty!

For some perspective, the last time Raw’s ratings were this high for both hours were last spring, just following WrestleMania, when Shawn Michaels had his farewell episode. Sure, we all know the Heartbreak Kid will return at some point… but what’s notable about this week’s show and the last month of ratings is that this is happening with no big debuts or departures; it’s just generally strong ratings leading into the last big WWE PPV of the summer, SummerSlam.

Could business be picking up? Let’s hope!

The next three guest hosts for Raw have been announced; apparently the guest host concept is alive and well, despite Raw naming Bret Hard the new Raw general manager.

Next Monday, Ashton Kutcher will appear to host and promote his new movie, The Killers. After that, there will be a three-hour Raw on June 7 featuring the cast of the new A-Team movie, which includes UFC fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in the Mister T role, as well as Bradley Cooper and Sharlto Copley.

Finally, Royal Pains star Mark Feuerstein will host on June 14 in a tidy cross-promotion between Raw and the USA dramedy. With a lineup like this, it looks like Bret Hart won’t have to work too hard as the new Raw GM after all. Guess he won’t have to peruse the PA job listings any time soon, then! Good deal!

In becoming Raw general manager, Bret Hart announced he was vacating the US Title he won off The Miz last week and that Miz would face top contender R-Truth to determine the new champ. R-Truth, coming off a nice win over Ted DiBiase Jr. at the Over the Top PPV, put on a show and was awarded the title.

This win sets up a natural feud over the US title between R-Truth and the Miz, which ought to make for more good matches, if this title match was any indicator. They displayed good in-ring chemistry and told a good tale from a ring psychology standpoint without over-relying on high-spots.

The Miz, who has obviously been laying off the weight loss diet supplements since his Real World New Orleans days, has matured into a solid heel, though he hasn’t yet rid himself of that youthful, Real World look.

From US Champ to new GM of Raw, Bret “the Hitman” Hart’s return to WWE has been nothing short of a complete success for both the former grappler and the company, which used Hart’s return to fend off and completely rebuff a challenge by TNA Impact to Raw’s Monday Night dominance.

Now, with the “guest host” concept gone by the wayside and Hart ensconced as a face authority figure, Raw might have a chance to return to some great, stable storytelling with a fresh perspective, rather than offering guest-hosting duties to just about everyone and their grandma as a unique mothers day gift.

Hart is a brilliant foil for the company’s heels, with great mic skills and instant credibility; and the ongoing power-struggle between Hart and McMahon could fuel some interesting PPV storylines. Well chosen, WWE!

Bret Hart will get a chance to once again wear WWE gold next week on Raw; he will be facing current US champ, The Miz. My tv stands are still shaking from shock and surprise.

Hart famously left WWE around 1997 to join the competition, WCW, and exited the company angry when he felt Vince McMahon welched on a promise to allow him to leave WWE undefeated as champ. A vacated title was his preferred way to exit.

When Vinnie Mac booked Shawn Michaels to win instead, in front of a pro-Hart Montreal audience, the incident became known as the Montreal Screw-Job. The event festered well over a decade and was only healed 12 years later, in 2009, when McMahon successfully negotiated to bring Bret back in a limited role, in a storyline that involved him getting retribution on McMahon for perceived wrongs.

It made for good TV and good ratings; but now Hart has apparently earned a title shot by being a good company man in his return to WWE. While it’s unlikely a title change will occur, it’s definitely decent of Hart to willingly give “the rub” to a young turk like The Miz. Classy move, Bret!

It was Monday Night Wars II, and it lasted… about two months.

Spike TV pre-empted Monday’s TNA Impact! with a re-airing of Star Wars III. The Star Wars rerun captured about a half-million viewers. Compare that the Impact, which was drawing around 1.1 million viewers, and you can decide for yourself if moving Impact! back to Thursday nights is a good move for Spike TV.

You can show all the slideshows you want that Impact does better numbers than any other programming on Monday night, but all Spike TV cared about, in the end, was how badly WWE Raw was beating them each and every week.

On Monday, by comparison, Raw drew 4.43 million viewers on USA.

Stone Cold Steve Austin may be mostly retired from the squared circle these days, but he proved with a simple guest-hosting job on Monday Night Raw tonight that he still carries with him more charisma than ninety percent of the current WWE roster combined.

Sure, Austin’s staying in shape making movies instead of retiring to perform auto insurance reviews and the like, but does he still have “it” – that hard-to-define ability to transform an arena into an electric power plant? You bet.

Even though he did nothing physical and wrestled no one, Austin simply carries credibility – even now. Something much of the current WWE roster would do well to learn from and emulate. Anyone who’d watch Impact instead of Austin is just a loon.

Raw easily won its first showdown with TNA Impact on Monday night, now that the second coming of Monday Night Wars has begun officially and in earnest. Raw drew a 3.4 rating and 5.1 million viewers, while Impact managed only a 1.0 rating and 1.4 million viewers head-to-head with Raw.

It’s early and no first-night-upset was expected. A monkey wrench was also thrown into the works, also; History Channel’s runaway hit, Pawn Stars, had its second-season finale on Monday and drew a strong, record-setting 5.8 million viewers, allowing it to edge Raw as the most-watched show in all of cable.

Pawn Stars draws heavily on the same male demographic that Raw and Impact draw, so once next Monday rolls around and Pawn Stars is no longer around during its hiatus, it will be intriguing to see what gains are made by both Raw and Impact. At least we won’t have to see The Old Man on Pawn Stars trying to underbid for a set of 1920s incontinence products. Heh.

The lack of a lineup of guest hosts beyond WrestleMania led us to speculate last week that the concept may be coming to an end; not so! At least, not yet, at any rate.

You can bet your sell merchant account that following Stone Cold’s appearance, the final pre-WrestleMania guest host will be Pete Rose; and the first post-WrestleMania guest host will be two of the stars of the movie Hot Tub Time Machine.

So while changes to Raw may be forthcoming, the guest host concept will live at least one episode past WrestleMania, at any rate…

Jim Ross’ future with WWE should be determined in the next few weeks. Now recovered from his latest bout with Bells Palsy, WWE is laying the groundwork for a potential Ross return to WWE Monday Night Raw. However, Ross has been wondering out loud on his blog whether he can keep up the schedule he used to keep when announcing full-time.

One can expect WWE will want him around at least in the short term, with WrestleMania coming up and Ross being a favorite of several important veterans including, most importantly, Bret Hart.

Also, the risk of releasing Ross right now is higher than ever; with TNA Impact moving permanently to Monday nights, it would take only a couple used travel trailers to get wrestling fans to check out TNA Impact broadcasts with Ross on the play-by-play; he’s be an immediate and meteoric improvement over Mike Tenay.

So it’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out; while WWE seems to be wanting to go younger than Ross, his importance to the success of WWE… or TNA… has never been higher.

On Monday, March 1, Cheech and Chong will be WWE guest hosts, followed by Criss Angel on March 8 opposite the new TNA Monday Night Impact; and then it will be Stone Cold Steve Austin on Monday, March 15.

Right now, there’s no guest host lined up for Monday, March 22, the final Raw before WrestleMania on Sunday, March 28. Could this mean that Stone Cold will be the final Raw guest host? If so, it would be hard to imagine a better guest host to end the concept on.

While WWE has The Rock lined up this summer for a short program, the guest host concept has kind of run its course since it debuted last June. What will WWE try next, to keep its product fresh against Impact?

One guess is that they are probably trying to line up a headline making “general manager of Raw,” returning to a more familiar concept. The smart money would be on Bret “The Hitman” Hart, whose guest host spot against the last experimental TNA Impact on Monday Night fared quite well for WWE.

The only question is whether Hart would be willing to accept a regular role on the show. If so, that would be plenty of impact against Impact, and would have TNA execs running for their diet aids.

The Rock is starting to talk more openly about the nature of his role in a possible return to WWE, on a limited basis, in 2010. While Duane Johnson is in the middle of shooting his latest movie, once production wraps, he is in talks with Vince McMahon to come in and do a guest-host job that could evolve into a limited-run storyline.

The Rock seemingly ruled out John Cena as his potential opponent, but did say he’d want to do something special. By special, he outlined these criteria:

1. It would have to benefit everyone, long-term, including WWE, his opponent and Johnson himself.

2. He would want to rip up the family-friendly script of current WWE product and push the edge back to Attitude-era edginess.

3. His return would not last long; either a one-off or a limited run engagement that would include a couple weeks of build-up, and then a PPV capper.

If handled well, such a storyline could help elevate one of WWE’s up-and-comers; the best potential opponents, in my mind, are Ted DiBiase Jr., Cody Rhodes, Sheamus or MVP. If the program is run against Cena or Randy Orton, I doubt that would benefit WWE quite as much for the future. If Rock returns, perhaps he’ll have a run-in with Stephanie McMahon, calling to mind his role as a face in the McMahon-Helmsley Era storylines. I’m sure Rock would have some great mic-time gifts for her.