WWE SmackDown receives huge viewing figures on Christmas Day

The Christmas Day episode of WWE SmackDown on FOX saw WWE receive a huge increase in viewing figures. According to Showbuzz Daily, the show averaged 3.335 million viewers, with 4.097 million viewers in the first hour and 2.574 million viewers in the second hour.

Last week’s WWE SmackDown (December 18) aired on FS1 instead of FOX. As a result, the show only had 1.030 million viewers.

BIG E DID IT! BIG E DID IT!!#SmackDown #ICTitle @WWEBigE @SamiZayn pic.twitter.com/l3GZoIaXrq

— WWE (@WWE) December 26, 2020

To put that number into context, the previous episode of WWE SmackDown on FOX (December 11) brought in 2.206 million viewers. One week earlier, the December 4 episode of WWE SmackDown on FOX drew 2.029 million viewers. WWE SmackDown had not received over three million viewers since the show debuted on FOX with 3.869 million viewers on October 4, 2019.

As for the key 18-49 demographic, the December 25 episode of WWE SmackDown averaged a 0.95 rating. That is a big jump from last week’s 0.3 rating on FS1 and the 0.6 rating from the previous week on FOX.

This week’s WWE SmackDown matches

WWE SmackDown began with Roman Reigns defeating Kevin Owens in a steel cage match to retain his Universal Championship. Charlotte Flair & Asuka then retained their Women’s Tag Team titles against Bayley & Carmella and Bianca Belair & Sasha Banks.

Later in the show, Daniel Bryan defeated Jey Uso in the one non-title match on the WWE SmackDown card. The final match of the night saw Big E defeat Sami Zayn to win the Intercontinental Championship.

Watch SK Wrestling's Denise Salcedo and Ryan K Boman review WWE SmackDown in this week's Smack Talk in the video above.