Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter
In the back issue of the Observer put on the website this past week, it noted that the main event of the April 24, 2000, episode of Raw, which was Rock & Jericho vs. HHH & Benoit, with Shane McMahon as referee, did an 8.59 rating (while granted, television ratings in general have dropped greatly for everyone compared to 2000, although the NFL’s numbers in 2000 and 2016 were almost identical) and well over 10 million viewers even though at the time far fewer people had cable. That was the third biggest in the history of cable television. So a funny part of that story is that the clocks inside the arena hadn’t been changed. Dwayne Johnson didn’t realize that and was going by the clocks to time when he would start warming up for the match. By the time he found out the clocks were an hour behind, he was mad because it was too late to get his warmup in. Jericho at the time joked, “Not even The Rock has the power to make time stand still.” The two highest rated main events in history were a Steve Austin vs. Undertaker title change on June 28, 1999, which did a 9.5 rating, and a May 10, 1999, match with Rock & Austin & Vince McMahon vs. HHH & Shane McMahon & Undertaker that did a 9.17 rating