This week’s edition of SmackDown Live drew 2.637 Million viewers, up from last week's 2.361 Million. This is a 12% increase in viewership. SmackDown Live was fifth for the night in total cable viewers, trailing three FOX News shows and Curse of Oak Island on the History Channel.
The show finished second on the night in the 18-49 demographic, scoring a 0.88 rating. SmackDown Live did nearly 0.3 million viewers lower than Raw.
The latest edition of SmackDown Live garnered large critical acclaim, primarily for pushing the boundaries of PG-TV, with the use of profanity, among other things. The entire show had a consistent flow to it, which surely led to viewers sticking around for the whole show.
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The main event was a match to decide the Number One Contender for the WWE Championship between Dolph Ziggler and Baron Corbin. The stipulation of the match was that if Dolph Ziggler lost, Corbin would become Number One contender.
Next week’s edition of SmackDown Live, which is the last of the year, is expected to do even better ratings as it sees the return of John Cena after a two-and-a-half-month hiatus.
Not only is John Cena returning, but SmackDown Live next week has a stacked card which makes it seem like a Pay-Per-View. There are three cChampionship matches. First is a Wild Card Fatal-4-Way Tag Team Elimination match for the Smackdown Tag Team Championships between The New Wyatt Family (the champions), American Alpha, The Usos, and Heath Slater & Rhyno.
The second Championship match is for the Smackdown Women’s Championship between Alexa Bliss and Becky Lynch. The final match, and presumably the main event, is a Triple Threat match for the WWE Championship between AJ Styles, Dolph Ziggler & Baron Corbin.
John Cena is expected to rekindle his feud with AJ Styles, with its theme continuing to be his chase for the elusive 16th World Championship. It is possible that AJ Styles will retain allowing Cena to make his presence known right after.
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