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What’s the story?
This week’s episode of SmackDown Live averaged 2.603 million viewers and was down 117,000 viewers from the January 2 episode.
In case you didn’t know
The matches on this week’s episode of SmackDown was Becky Lynch versus Ruby Riott, The Bludgeon Brothers versus The Ascension, Mojo Rawley versus Zack Ryder as part of the United States Championship tournament, Breezango versus Rusev Day, and the main event between Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn against Shinsuke Nakamura, Randy Orton and WWE Champion AJ Styles.
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The heart of the matter
The 2.603 million viewership average marks the end of the Blue Brand’s increased viewership trend that began on December 12, 2017 – the SmackDown before the Clash of Champions pay-per-view.
Despite the low viewership, SmackDown was at the top of the Tuesday cable ratings against four NBA games and the other regularly scheduled programs.
SmackDown’s viewership was low but averaged 70,000 more fans than the Jan. 10 episode which featured American Alpha defending the SmackDown Tag Team Championships against The Wyatt Family as well as John Cena versus Baron Corbin for the first time ever.
Many fans said that this week’s show was structured oddly with little to no wrestling on most of the show. The longest match on the card lasted 17 minutes and ended with Zayn getting beatdown by Nakamura, Orton and Styles.
Raw has also averaged lower viewership in recent weeks, but the belief is that they will rebind strongly on the 25th Anniversary episode which has advertised several WWE legends, alumni, and Hall of Famers expected for the show.
With no big television episode to build, SmackDown’s viewership decrease could continue until the SmackDown after the Royal Rumble.
What’s next?
Next week’s SmackDown will immediately be followed by the broadcast of the Mixed Match Challenge on Facebook.
If WWE wants stronger numbers for the Facebook show, they’ll likely have to make SmackDown a more interesting show.
Author’s take
This week’s episode came across as mediocre, but hopefully, they’ll pick things up heading into the Royal Rumble.
